


The End of the Line

by Manny in Marvel Land (Manniness)



Series: A Hydra-made Former Assassin in Outer Space [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Abandonment Issues, Attempts at therapy, Bucky meets Rocket, EVERYONE ships Bucket, Guardians of the Galaxy at work, M/M, Not-so-good first impressions, PTSD, Rocket POV, bucky pov, injuries and whump, interspecies sexytimes, interspecies shenanigans, making out for the hell of it, making out for the sake of the mission, semper fi, the Winter Soldier crashes the party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 56,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24251587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/Manny%20in%20Marvel%20Land
Summary: When Wakanda is no longer a safe haven for Bucky Barnes, he finds himself in the last place he would have expected: outer space.  His fate now lies in the hands of a bunch of jackasses who call themselves the “Guardians of the Galaxy.”  And here’s the kicker: they might just be Bucky’s only chance at gaining control over the Winter Soldier once and for all.
Relationships: Bucket - Relationship, James "Bucky" Barnes/Rocket Raccoon
Series: A Hydra-made Former Assassin in Outer Space [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839031
Comments: 33
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m mainly working from the movies that I’ve seen. (But I love the idea that Tony Stark spent time with the Guardians of the Galaxy at some point like is shown in the comics?? Am I understanding that right??)
> 
> Let’s pretend the Sovereign issue from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has been dealt with and Adam is not a problem or in the picture. (Maybe he’s in Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: End Game but I haven’t seen either of those movies yet. And since there is no awesome Bucket action, I probably won’t. I am a bad fan.)
> 
> Groot is all “grown up” again because reasons.
> 
> Kraglin is using the (Third) Quadrant (of Ecletor) for his own start-up band of Ravagers.
> 
> The Guardians have a “new” version of the Milano (which is pretty snug for so many people, so everybody’s gonna be up in everybody else’s business).
> 
> After giving the tags a great deal of thought, I have decided to classify this fic as M/M because (to my mind) Rocket is a male person (in an “anthropomorphized” raccoon body).
> 
> I apologize in advance if this story contains often-used or redundant elements; I am NOT widely read in this fandom (plus, I am LATE AS HELL). But please do let me know if this story reminds you of another. I would love to mention it in the chapter notes. (^_^)
> 
> THANK YOU for the incredible inspiration and motivation your gorgeous works provided:
> 
> Fanvid: “Battles with the Mind” by Loki (Song: “I can get it back” by Zack Hemsey)  
> https://youtu.be/KisgccWNCyM
> 
> Fanfic: “A Fool Unto Himself” + “Elseworlds” (Chapter 28) by Decepticonsensual  
> https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve made some slight changes to Steve and Bucky’s last scene together in Wakanda at the end of Captain America: Civil War.

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

It wasn’t Captain America asking, so Bucky took a moment to inhale and exhale before he answered. Not that the answer would or could change. Facts were facts.

He didn’t take his eyes off of the sleek cryo-pod -- nothing like the clunky, Russian-made leviathans he’d come to dread on-sight -- as he answered his best friend’s question: “It’s what’s best for now.”

Or, at least until someone came up with a game plan for deprogramming him and erasing the Winter Soldier for good.

Bucky dared to tap Steve on the shoulder with his fist. He used the right one. He still didn’t have a left one. But maybe that was for the best, too. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Yeah.” Steve huffed, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “It’ll go by in the blink of an eye.”

“Enjoy your downtime.”

“Can’t wait to get started.”

“Punk.”

The old nickname earned Bucky a brusque hug and then, thankfully, it was time. Before brave masks crumbled and dry eyes slicked with moisture. Because men from their generation had never learned how to cry.

So. That was how James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes willingly returned to the embrace of cryo-freeze.

How he emerged from it, however, is another story altogether…

* * *

A cage. The rattle of metal. A feeling of off-balance and vulnerable because where his left arm ought to be there was nothing but empty space. He was wearing clothing he recalled putting on: a T-shirt and soft trousers. Soft-soled shoes on his feet.

He remembered Wakanda, his last moments before stepping into the cryo-pod.

But now he was awake, lying on metal grating under a single glaring light, and he had no idea why.

“Yeah, we got what ya came for!” a too-loud voice crowed from somewhere beyond what Bucky could make out. “See for yerself.”

Even before Bucky opened his eyes, he knew he wasn’t in Wakanda cold storage anymore. Wasn’t anywhere near their science facilities, either. Where he was now, he couldn’t begin to guess. What wasn’t shrouded in darkness was filthy. Grungy and covered in a strange, clinging dust. Other, smaller lights flickered high above the mess of his cage and far in the distance. Too faint and indistinct to get his bearings by.

He sat up slowly and turned to face the sound of several approaching sets of footsteps. One slow and plodding. Another light and fleet. Plus the clunk of boots from other spectators, come to enjoy the show.

“Aw, crap,” a low voice muttered. “Great. This is just great.”

Bucky’s gaze zeroed in on the source of that voice and its sarcasm. It was low -- emanating from about waist-height -- and male. This was no child speaking. A man crouching down to get a better look at Bucky? He squinted, but it was like trying to see through London fog.

“Easy peasy, he said,” the croucher grumped. “Just load ‘im up and off ya go.” A derisive hiss. “I’m gonna kill Quill.”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, you would say it like the glass is half full.”

“Is there a problem?” the enthusiastic owner of the first voice jeered and there was an audible shift in the air as the disgruntled figure rounded on the host… tour guide… salesman?

“Yeah, I got a problem. You, Kraglin, are my problem. Because you’re an idiot. What part of ‘do not open the package’ did you have trouble with? He’s supposed to be on ice.”

“The pod was damaged. I assumed you didn’t want yer feller here to die on ya.”

“Damaged, eh? While your crew was pawing all over it, helping themselves to a couple of components, more like.”

“Hey. We got an airlock that’ll chill him down real fast.”

A low growl resonated. “You moron. At least tell me what you did with the cryo-pod.”

“It’s included. Free of charge.”

 _Definitely a salesman,_ Bucky decided, his entire body locking down. Bracing hard against the prospect of another handler.

_Never again._

“Well I should damn well think so! Since you were hired to retrieve both it and its contents. Undamaged or altered.” An irritated noise. “Idiot Ravagers.”

“You want the cargo ’r not? Fifty thousand units -- as agreed -- and they’re all yours.”

“Thirty thousand. You cracked the seal on that cryo-pod as was most definitely _not_ agreed, pal.”

“Forty.”

“Thirty-five _and_ you throw in a pair of decent boots for the passenger there, _plus_ an arm. We pick it. Final offer.”

“Deal.”

There was a soft shuffle of pockets being turned out and a soft electronic beep.

“Pleasure doin’ business with ya,” Kraglin pompously declared.

“Yeah, that remains to be seen,” groused the other, who still hadn’t stood up. Another rustle of cloth. “Well. Fine. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Bucky kept himself from tensing as he sensed a figure approach.

Just beyond the circle of glaring overhead light, the man paused and cleared his throat. “I bet you’ve got questions, am I right?”

Bucky didn’t reply.

The man -- his new owner -- breathed out a heavy sigh. “Look, I don’t suppose you’d do a guy a favor and just tell us that yes, you’ve heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy?”

Again, Bucky gave no response.

“What about Peter Quill?”

Silence.

“Star Lord??” he prompted with blatant reluctance.

Bucky blinked, saying a whole lot of nothing.

“I am Groot?” the third and deep-voiced individual offered.

“Why?” the man asked, a sarcastic edge to his voice. “Did you bring a fruit basket with you?”

“I am Groot!”

“No, I have no doubt that you could make one. Sheesh.”

“I am Groot…”

“OK, fine. I’ll show him.” The first voice was aimed back at Bucky. “Here, see for yourself.”

A slender tablet slid through the bars and tumbled to the cage floor.

“That’s the message Tony Stark sent me two days ago, right after you launched. We got here as fast as we could. And, if I might add, we’ve got places to be.”

Bucky still didn’t move.

“Grrragh,” he snarled, but Bucky sensed that his irritation wasn’t solely focused on Bucky. “This would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if you were still snoozing in your cryo-pod. This is the last time I do that jackass humie a favor.”

Bucky glanced down at the tablet screen. He’d seen similar devices, sure, but this one seemed mostly composed of transparent material. Like a sheet of tinted glass. A blue light blinked insistently in the center of the screen. He reached out with his right hand and tapped it.

Tony Stark’s face appeared on the surface. The man was clearly stressed and trying hard not to look it.

“Hey, Rocky Raccoon. Got a fella here headed your way. A friend of a friend. Persona non grata here planet side. Just need you to hold onto him for a bit. Won’t be any trouble. He’s in cryo-freeze. Tuck him in a closet. Let him get his beauty sleep. I’ll be in touch.”

The message ended with a flash of coordinates and some sort of algorithm. A trajectory.

None of this was making any sense. Tony Stark wanted Bucky dead -- he wanted the Winter Soldier dead. And where was Steve in all this? He wouldn’t have just let Bucky be taken from Wakanda. Not without a fight. Or a heads-up. Or something.

“So, what’s it gonna be, pal? You staying here and hanging out in these fine accommodations or you feel up to putting one foot in front of the other?”

Bucky let his gaze rove over the filthy cage one more time, just to make sure this supposed friend of Stark’s understood that the choice wasn’t an obvious one for Bucky. In the end, though, he stood. Flexed his right arm and made a fist. Just because he didn’t have the mechanical arm didn’t mean he couldn’t be deadly.

But would he come to regret it later?

 _“It doesn’t have to end in a fight,”_ Steve had insisted and Bucky still wanted to believe that. Although experience had repeatedly taught him otherwise.

The lock clicked and the wall of the cage slid open on a weighty rumble. Bucky moved toward the edge of the light. His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and when they did--

“I am Groot,” a looming, bipedal tree informed him with a friendly smile.

“And I’m king of the solar system,” said Stark’s pal. “Let’s get a move-on already.”

Bucky stared hard at what seemed to be some sort of lithe, furry creature.

_“Raccoon” was right._

It spun around, leading the way past several gawping men. None of whom Bucky would have classified as human, although the ringleader, Kraglin, came pretty close.

Both Bucky and the tree -- Groot -- followed the raccoon through the cargo bay and around to some sort of storage area and workshop.

“Let’s get you fitted for an arm while those bozos hunt up some boots.” The raccoon glanced down. “Unless you really are attached to those booties.”

Rather than argue that they were moccasins (or, “slippers” at worst), Bucky replied, “Boots would be good.”

“And he speaks!” The raccoon flapped its slender, hairy arms. “Hallelujah! Good, OK, now I’m thinking this one, this one, or that one over there ought to fit.”

Bucky followed his pointing and found himself in a veritable forest of prosthetic limbs. Hands, feet, whole legs, tentacles, and a variety of other appendages and sensory organs (like ears and eyeballs, eugh) dangled from hooks like fishing bait on a line. Pushing past the surrealness of the moment, he hefted each of the three limbs. The second came closest in weight to what he was used to.

The raccoon sighed. “Of course you’d pick the ugliest piece of junk in this shithole. OK, then. Toddle over to the counter. Let’s get it on ya sometime today.”

Bucky wanted to insist on doing it himself, but he’d never been permitted to learn anything about his mechanical arm or how it attached. The minor damage he’d sustained in his fight against Steve in the Insight helicarrier had never been dealt with. He’d just learned to work around it. Daily life being nowhere near as strenuous as hunting down and dispatching marks, it hadn’t been an issue.

Now, though, it was.

The raccoon grabbed an assortment of tools and started humming under his breath as he laid them out very carefully on the counter top. Then he effortlessly hefted the prosthetic arm in one small paw.

“Here. Hold that. Good. Groot, gimme some light.”

The tree opened its palm and wisps of light -- like scattering dandelion seeds -- floated up and out and everywhere. As one brushed Bucky’s cheek and the raccoon started duh-duhing through a refrain, Bucky asked, “Why’re you bothering?”

“Eh.” He gave a careless, one-shouldered shrug. “I know Stark’s good for it.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “You’re selling me to him.”

“What!?” The raccoon reared back. “No!” He actually sounded offended. “We don’t buy and sell _people._ Damn.”

The tree shrugged. “I am Groot.”

“Yeah, I know Quill said his home planet had problems, but that is MESSED -- UP.”

Bucky was confused. “Then what just happened back there?”

“I just paid your taxi fare.”

“I am Groot,” the talking tree pointed out and the raccoon rolled his eyes.

“Fine, fine. I just paid your taxi fare with Quill’s money. Like I said, we couldn’t get to you in time, so we had Kraglin intercept. He was supposed to just hold on to you, but the only thing you can count on the Ravagers for is stealing the whiskers off your face when you blink.”

The raccoon gave Bucky a knowing look. “We’re gonna have to go over that cryo-pod real careful for switcheroos.”

“So… if I’m going back to sleep, why the arm?”

With another shrug, the animal replied, “From the look of you, I’d say you could get along just fine without it. But.” He looked up with a wicked twinkle in his dark eyes. “I’m hoping you’ll let me borrow it every once in a while.”

“What for?”

“Um, because it’d be funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Yeah? Well, you oughta be. This thing is a piece of shit. I could build you a better one in my sleep.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh-ho! So that’s how it is?” The raccoon gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “It’s game on, humie.”

He gave a firm tug to whatever the tool in his paws was attached to and, suddenly, Bucky had an arm again. It wasn’t shiny or bulging with “muscles.” In fact, it looked like the arm off one of those diving suits that the navy had used decades ago for salvage operations, but it had four fingers and a thumb and something deep in Bucky settled down. Some subconscious feeling of incompleteness soothed away. An itch scratched.

The raccoon nodded to the appendage. “How’s it feel?”

Bucky took a step back and swung it around. Picked up something that looked like a wrench and tried to juggle it how he’d once handled a knife. The memory of fighting Steve on the bridge slammed into him and he fumbled to a stop. He watched the clunky fingers curl around the handle of the gizmo and squeeze, but the metal didn’t give. Not at all. Not like it was supposed to. The fingers didn’t respond quick enough and the elbow didn’t quite bend the way it should, but the weight hanging off of his left shoulder was familiar and, really, that was the most important thing.

He tossed the wrench back where he’d gotten it from. “It’ll do. Thanks.”

“Well,” the raccoon shrugged. “I’d say it was my pleasure, but seriously, man. That arm. It hurts just looking at it.”

Just then, a set of meandering footsteps came to a halt outside the workroom door. Kraglin cleared his throat. “I come bearing boots!”

“Wonderful!” the raccoon crowed. “And your timing is perfect. For once. Let’s go over that cryo-pod, shall we?”

It was more a threat than an invitation if the raccoon’s sharp-toothed smile and flattened ears were anything to go by, but Groot looked on with a pleasant smile.

Kraglin gulped. “Uh, right this way, fellas.”


	2. Chapter 2

There were parts missing from the Wakandan cryo-pod. And a few others that had been replaced with clever look-a-likes.

“God knows why you’d want to be put on ice,” the raccoon grumbled as he shooed away the pirates -- Ravagers -- who’d been caught attempting to help themselves to high-end tech. Bucky watched the raccoon reassemble the machine, those small, claw-tipped paws moving with cool competence.

“It’s a long story,” Bucky murmured.

“Ain’t they all,” the creature agreed, and in the same breath called Groot over and instructed him to scoop up the cryo-pod. “Follow me,” the raccoon insisted, heading deeper into the hangar with an irreverent wave over his shoulder toward the Ravagers. “Later, assholes.”

“Ye’re gonna regret not using yer manners one o’ these days, Rocket,” Kraglin chastised him.

The raccoon -- Rocky or Rocket? -- spun around and hefted a bulky device from his back, leveled it right at Kraglin and snarled, “Not nearly as much as you will if I find even one missing or unoriginal component in this pod.”

The device pumped out in layers, lengthening until Bucky recognized the blocky barrel of some sort of gun. It crackled with electricity.

Kraglin put up both hands in defeat. “Give Quill my best, will ya? Wish ‘im well on his road to recovery.”

The raccoon sneered and then clambered along another walkway which led off to the left and directly into the rear hull of a smaller ship.

An air ship. Of some kind.

Bucky hesitated and, at his back, Groot almost plowed into him with the cryo-pod.

“Here we go,” the raccoon was saying, attention riveted by whatever was fore. Probably the cockpit. “Watch your head, lummox. Groot, lock that pod down.”

“What kind of ship is this?” Bucky asked.

The raccoon laughed. “Well it ain’t for--hey.” He’d just glanced back and noticed the fact that Bucky was on the wrong side of the hull doors. “What gives, man?”

“Where am I,” Bucky clarified, “exactly?”

There must have been something in Bucky’s eyes, some remnant of the Winter Soldier, because the raccoon stayed perfectly still and pointed toward the ladder that extended upward. “See for yourself.”

Warily, Bucky moved into the ship, past a small cargo hold and some sort of communal space. He followed Rocket up the ladder, found himself looking at the cockpit seats. Turning, his gaze skipped over the softly glowing lights on the control console and--

He gaped at the view through the craft’s windows. There, in the dark distance, was a blue ball dotted with swirling, white clouds.

Earth.

The Earth was out _there_ and Bucky was in _here_ … with a walking tree and a raccoon with an attitude problem.

Enough was enough.

“Just what the hell is going on?”

“What’s going on,” the raccoon said very slowly as Groot shrugged his way into the cockpit, “is we are leaving. You sit there.” He pointed to the navigator’s seat. “Buckle up.”

He didn’t wait around to make sure Bucky complied with the order. He swung himself into the pilot’s seat and his dexterous fingers began a baffling series of start-up commands.

But Bucky was not sitting down and he was most certainly not buckling up. Not until he got some answers.

Fingers that felt like branches curled around Bucky’s flesh-and-blood shoulder and he reacted, pivoting hard and not only dislodging the woodsy grasp but sending Groot stumbling, limbs flailing and smacking into the walls and low ceiling.

“Hey! We are here to help, you jackass!”

“Like I’ve never heard that before,” Bucky challenged. “Why am I here?”

The raccoon slowly turned back around and began picking his way slowly through pre-flight, side-eyeing Bucky. “Wish I had all the answers for you, pal, I really do. All I’ve got are guesses and I’m guessing you’re a wanted man back on Oith.” He nodded his snout toward the distant planet.

“Earth,” Bucky numbly corrected.

“Oh? Is that what you call it?” the raccoon drawled indifferently.

“What do you call it?”

“Terra. And since you’re not correcting my other assumption, I’m also guessing I’m right.”

“I am Groot,” the tree said firmly, frowning at Bucky and pointing to the navigator’s chair.

Bucky refused. “Take me back to Earth.”

“No can do. Landing on that rock is gonna take fuel we ain’t got and, more importantly, time we don’t have.” Nimble paws paused and the raccoon twisted to glare over its shoulder. “Sit _down._ Please.”

Bucky snorted at the strained attempt.

“Look, I’m assuming you’re a friend of Stark’s, which means you _could_ \-- conceivably -- be a friend of ours. A friend of a friend, right?”

Bucky weighed that in silence.

“Or,” the raccoon continued with a glance at the tree as he turned back around, “we don’t have to be all nice and accommodating.”

“I am Groot,” the tree snarled as thorns and brambles erupted from its craggy surface.

Bucky didn’t budge.

The raccoon sighed. “Look, we’re supposed to be running in silent mode here, but once we get where we’re going, you can contact whoever you need to talk to on Terra. Sort this out.”

“How far is that? Where we’re going.”

“Just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Half a day tops.”

And since that sounded like a distance Bucky could retrace easily enough, he sat down. He sat and he tried not to think of the last time he’d been in the navigator’s seat, but of course he did. _“I’m not worth all this,”_ he’d told Steve, who had been too quiet for a second too long behind the yoke of the stolen Quinjet.

But, apparently he was worth something. Worth the effort of getting him off the planet. Worth thirty-five thousand units to whoever had intercepted the cryo-pod and woken him up. And, if Steve’s lack of warning was anything to go by, he was worth letting go.

“Ever gone through a hyper-jump before?” the raccoon mused far too casually.

“What do you think?”

He cackled. “I think you’re either gonna love it, or you’re gonna hate it. Hold on.”

As Groot literally rooted himself to the neighboring chair, Bucky reached for the safety harness and buckled in. It was awkward and he fumbled a bit because his left arm wasn’t cooperating fully, but the lock clicked tight just as the stars lengthened like dried spaghetti. And then the whole ship seemed to get sucked into a blur of psychedelic light.

Bucky’s stomach was left behind, struggling to catch up with the rest of him, but in the next breath it was over and they were floating in a debris field that seemed to be circling some sort of artificial moon. A satellite, maybe. A big one.

“This is where we’re going?” Bucky rasped, eyeing several tiny ships zooming from one cluster of space junk to another. Like bees on a field of wild flowers. Dead ones.

“Nope,” the raccoon chirped. “This is the part between the hop and the skip. Gotta make a pick-up.”

“More people in cryo-pods?” Bucky snarked.

The raccoon snorted. “No,” he drawled. “A couple of days ago, we ran into some jerks from Kree. Got into it. They damaged the weapons systems here on the _Milano._ Technically, this is the _Milano III_ \-- it’s been blown up a couple of times. But anyway, can’t make things go boom without parts, cutie.”

“My name is Bucky.”

“And mine’s Rocket. You use mine, and I’ll use yours. Deal?”

Bucky grunted. He watched Rocket pilot toward an unoccupied docking bay and slide the ship smoothly into the space. Groot got up to lock the hatch down and then Rocket was throwing off his own harness.

“C’mon,” he told Bucky. “Gotta see a Krylorian about a new pulse relay.”

Bucky tried to take in as many details about the craft as he could before he stepped off of it. He glimpsed a lighted tray of what seemed to be plants -- vegetables or herbs -- growing. A table with six little stools clustered around it at irregular intervals. A case on the wall containing small, gray discs that were “For Emergencies” and, scratched beneath that in shaky red writing: “or for fun.” Whatever else happened to be on the ship, Bucky couldn’t see. It was locked down or locked up.

He followed Rocket (and Groot brought up the rear) as they disembarked. The inside of this hangar looked fairly similar to the one they’d just left. It was the clusters of people -- aliens -- that were different, keeping to themselves rather than mingling with strangers from other ships. There was no united front to greet them, so Rocket strolled right through the nearest doorway and led them directly into a city. A space city of dimly lit structures and stacks of scrap. So maybe not a city at all.

“This some kind of junkyard?” Bucky asked Rocket.

“Very good,” he replied with only a trace of sarcasm. “And the piece of work who runs it is--”

Whatever the owner of the space junkyard was, Bucky didn’t hear because--

“Hey, you! Vermin!”

Rocket sighed. “This is just what my day needs.”

A massive man (of sorts) with a face that looked like it had been melted off and then remolded by childlike hands (a couple of times) stomped over and jabbed a finger in Rocket’s direction. “Thought I told you never to come back to this quadrant!”

“Actually, you threatened to do bodily harm if you ever saw me again. Ain’t my fault you still got eyeballs.”

“Think you’re smart, doncha?”

“I’m a frickin’ genius, Ragtag. And I’m busy, so go pester someone else.”

“The name’s Ragorn, and you owe me the phase array that you stole off of my ship!”

“Well, maybe if it hadn’t been so easy to steal, I wouldn’t have stolen it! Live and learn, pus breath.”

It wasn’t Bucky’s imagination that the man actually bulked up where he stood, swelling like a balloon until he was blocking out a good 90% of Rocket’s view. “The only way you’re gonna keep on living is if you cough up a phase array -- unused and in mint condition, vermin.”

“Well, that’s not gonna happen,” Rocket muttered, still glaring, and Bucky blinked as vines and branches snaked around Ragorn from behind, courtesy of Groot. And that was when all hell broke loose.

Ragorn’s buddies rushed them.

Bucky spun into the space at Groot’s back as Rocket climbed up to the walking tree’s shoulder, unfurled the blocky rifle he’d threatened Kraglin with and let out a whoop with his first shot.

Meanwhile, Bucky was following up his first punch (left hand) with his more solid right, laying some sort of blue-skinned reptile-man on his back.

A tentacle swung overhead--

Bucky crouched, grabbed the knife off of the prone reptile’s belt, rolled and slashed--

The tentacle landed with a _splat!_ still writhing and pulsing viscus, glowing blood.

A flash of blue approaching from Bucky’s flank--

Bucky flinched, but found a shield of branches and twigs suddenly blocking the shot.

Overhead, a maniacal cackle rang out as Rocket returned fire. The shooter crumpled into a gasping, twitching heap, blue sparks popping here and there over his unconscious body in the sudden silence.

“Well,” Rocket said, voice echoing in the cavernous dome of the junkyard town. “That was fun. Groot, you can drop that jackass anytime.”

Bucky stepped aside as the vines retreated from around the shrouded figure of Ragorn and the unconscious man swayed with increasing momentum toward the metal grating. He landed face-down on the dismembered tentacle. The alien to whom it had once belonged was nowhere in sight.

“I am Groot,” the tree pointed out.

“Yeah,” Rocket agreed, “he’s gonna regenerate that before these bozos come to. Clock’s ticking.” He glanced over his shoulder at Bucky. “This way.”

Some twists and turns later found them in a sturdy hangar stacked with shiny components that looked like something Hydra would have come up with. Bucky blinked hard, fisted both hands, and ordered himself not to lead with the knife. His souvenir from the fight just now.

“Hey, Rouker. If you got a pulse relay lying around, you’re my new best friend,” Rocket announced and one of the figures currently hunching over a brightly-lit workbench stood, angrily yanked off a set of goggles and tossed them aside.

“Piss off, you little shit. You know I don’t sell to anyone who damages the merchandise!”

Rocket put out both hands. “I didn’t damage nuthin’! Laser pulses, man. I hit what I was aimin’ at.”

Rouker turned and stomped toward them, his red skin flushing even darker with his glower and Bucky was suddenly back on that rickety catwalk above the flames of the Hydra factory. Red Skull pontificating and Bucky asking Steve if he’d been given one of those nightmarish faces along with the bulging muscles and extra eight inches in height--

A nudge on Bucky’s arm had him sucking in a sharp breath and staring at Groot’s concerned frown.

_Shit._

But it seemed that no one else had noticed. Rocket and Rouker were dickering over price and all was quiet back the way they’d come. Bucky gave Groot a nod and the tree straightened up to its full height, idly scanning their surroundings.

“I’m not paying that,” Rocket was insisting, “and you wanna know why? Because that’s extortion. That’s why.”

“Then go somewhere else.”

“Fine! I will!” Rocket spun around and Groot moved to match his short, angry steps with long, lazy strides.

They didn’t pass by the spot where Ragorn had found them, so Bucky had no idea if they were up and about yet, but they made it back to the ship undisturbed. As soon as they were aboard and buckled in, Rocket zoomed them away and, without a word of warning, initiated another hyper-jump.

This time, it left Bucky’s stomach where it was, but his head was spinning.

“Lemme see,” Rocket demanded, making grabby hands in Groot’s general direction. From a twig-surrounded lump on his shoulder, the tree removed a small gizmo and handed it over.

“Yes!” Rocket crowed. “This will definitely do the trick. Hold onto that until I get us docked.”

Realizing that it hadn’t been a wasted trip after all, Bucky mused, “I think you just wore out your welcome back there with Rouker.”

“What? Nah. I’ll zoom him the units before we leave.” Rocket shot him a fangy grin over his shoulder and confided, “Rouker’s like that with everyone. Damn space junk hoarder.”

Bucky figured he’d have to take Rocket’s word on that. The ship was descending through some sort of cloud now and, when it cleared, Bucky blinked at the sleek space station directly up ahead. Ships were coming and going at a dizzying rate and Bucky felt a surge of adrenaline as Rocket jockeyed for a berth.

“OK, we are docked,” Rocket declared several death-defying maneuvers and a metaphorical screeching halt later. “Go with Groot. Do some shopping.” He tossed a smallish, cylindrical device toward Groot, who caught it easily. “I got work to do.”

Bucky shoved his harness aside, but paused as he left the cockpit. “Solid play back there. You drawing Ragorn in and Groot coming up behind him.”

“Yeah. You weren’t bad yourself.” Rocket eyed him. “Had a little work done, eh?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched.

Rocket’s brows arched. “What? You ain’t the only one.”

That was true. However, as far as Bucky knew, he was the only one who’d never volunteered.

Rocket continued, “I’m just saying it’d be nice to see someone give Gamora and Drax a good showing up. Let’s be honest -- I’d pay to see that.”

Because, naturally, Bucky had been made into the Winter Soldier solely for the sake of entertainment.

Sobering under Bucky’s stare, Rocket mumbled, “Mods ain’t such a big deal out here.”

“They are where I come from,” Bucky grated out and then walked away without another word.

The spaceport resembled a fancy resort hotel complex more than an actual city. Potted plants and sidewalks that shimmered with advertisements and directional arrows. Water fountains and placards that flashed with one printed language after another. In the time it took Bucky to scan the street, he saw not a single word that was vaguely familiar.

He veered right and prowled along with the flow of foot traffic, trying not to stare at the kaleidoscope of creatures, all of whom ignored him. He passed a barber shop, a shoe store, some kind of video arcade, and finally zeroed in on a bar.

The space was smokey and boisterous although it wasn’t at capacity yet. Bucky sidled up to an empty stool and leaned on the bar. A green-skinned man was mixing a syrupy red drink with an air of boredom.

“Don’t know what your Flora colossus drinks, but I’m pretty sure we don’t serve it here,” the bartender drawled, plopping what looked like a clump of frog eggs into the drink and sliding the concoction in front of a customer.

“Need to make a call,” Bucky told him. “Where can I do that?”

“From your ship, I’d say.”

“Comms are down. This can’t wait.”

The bartender sighed. “Best bet’s the hub. Follow the yellow arrows.”

“Thanks.”

Bucky ducked back out onto the street, Groot clinging like a shadow. Once he looked for them, the yellow arrows were easy enough to find and the hub itself was impossible to miss. It rose like Grand Central Station out of the center of the place. People bustled in and out, stopping at various windows for what appeared to be monetary transactions of some sort. Deposits, withdrawals, transfers, exchanges. Some entered with sacks and crates that changed hands. Bucky kept moving until he spied… yes! That thing off to the left looked a lot like a public phone booth.

He tried the door, but it didn’t budge. Locked.

A voice barked at him from a side panel speaker.

Bucky smacked at the door with his palm, beyond exasperated. “God damn it, use English,” he growled.

It did: “State the destination of your call.”

He blinked. “Earth.”

“The planet Terra, also known as Earth. Access is set at one thousand units. Please provide payment.”

Damn it.

A tap on his shoulder. Bucky turned and looked at Groot expectantly. “You got a thousand units on you?”

Groot shook his head and held out the do-hickey that Rocket had sent them out with. Bucky took it, but hesitated to start pressing buttons. Groot helpfully poked one in particular and the thingamabob seemed to unscroll into a screen. Groot mimed holding it up and Bucky complied. It only took a moment for him to figure out what the thing was doing: as each face in the crowd came into focus, data was displayed. Generic information like height, weight, gender, species. But then the blue grid flashed red, followed by a photo and a price.

“Bneju Whukun. Five thousand units,” Bucky read. “Wanted by the Nova Corps.” He looked at Groot. “That mean anything to you?”

Groot nodded and lumbered after the mark.

 _Well, what the hell,_ Bucky mused, pressed the power button, and tucked the deactivated cylinder into his waistband. “There’s more than one kind of shopping,” he muttered and moved to cut off Whukun’s escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Milano III -- in order to show the passing of time without using actual months and years (because, really, what does that mean in space, anyway, when every planet has its own rate of rotation?) I’m adding an unspecified adventure which led to the Milano getting seriously damaged AGAIN. In the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the ship was crashed into Ronan’s Dark Aster battleship and rebuilt by the Nova Corps. In the second movie, the Milano (No. 2) was crash landed on planet Berhert. We see Rocket working on repairing it, so I assume they got it up and running again after escaping Ego’s planet. But, yeah, sometime after this, THAT ship was wrecked and a third rebuilt -- maybe with the help of Kraglin because he was hoping to have Yondu’s old ship (the Third Quadrant) all to himself for building up his own Ravager crew.
> 
> The Milano III has three decks: cockpit (top deck), galley (including kitchen, table, common space) and cargo hold and a first-aid pod for non-life-threatening injuries (middle deck), and shower/water closet, and private bunk rooms (lower deck). So it’s a little bigger than the second ship we saw in movie two and a LOT bigger than the ship we saw in the first movie. (It seemed to me that the rebuilt ship was roomier somehow.)
> 
> Ragorn -- no idea what this guy’s species is. Totally and 100% made up.
> 
> “cylindrical device” -- this is the gizmo that Rocket was using in his first scene (of the first movie) when he’s scanning the crowd on Xandar, looking for folks with bounties on them. I like to think that he made this nifty device himself. Other bounty hunters might have their own versions, either made by their own hands or commissioned from someone tech-savvy and shady.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the hell is this?” Rocket blustered, aghast, gawping at the alert flashing on the hand-held screen. According to the updated Nova Corps records, Bneju Whukun was now in custody. Rounding on Groot, Rocket growled, “We’re a team, you idiot! You’re supposed to call me if you actually find one. What were you thinking?”

Groot shrugged and glanced at Bucky, which Bucky took as his cue. How could he not, really? Taking down a snarling A’askavariian -- needle-like teeth and flailing tentacles included -- was as much a bonding experience as anything Bucky had been through with the Howling Commandos.

“You could’ve just said you were bounty hunters,” Bucky accused, arms crossed and brow cocked.

“Well, yeah,” Rocket retorted. “Anyone who doesn’t have a home address is pretty much in that line of work.”

“Which means I qualify.”

“Get your own partner, pal. Groot and I go way back.” He turned back to Bucky’s new friend. “What’d you cut me out of this one for?”

“I am Groot.”

“One stupid call!? It couldn’t have waited?”

“I needed to do it on my own dime,” Bucky informed him. “No offense, Rocket.”

Rocket’s shoulders slumped. “Well, OK. Yeah, I get it. I hope it connected all right for you.”

When Bucky didn’t elaborate, Rocket huffed. _“Now_ can we get the hell outta here?”

Groot cast his vote by sitting down. Bucky swung into the navigator’s chair. With something that almost sounded like an exasperated whine, Rocket climbed behind the yoke. “Last hyper-jump,” he warned and then hit the thrusters.

Lurching through brilliant, spiraling colors didn’t give Bucky much opportunity to reflect on the call he’d placed to Earth, but once the ship was spat out at its destination, he had plenty of time to go over it in his head as Rocket eased the craft into designated traffic lanes and they inched toward some sort of toll gate which surrounded a featureless metal sphere, drab and lifeless.

Back in the phone booth, still marveling at the course his day was taking, Bucky had selected “Terra” from the provided menu and dialed the number of Steve’s disposable cell phone, praying hard that someone would pick up _pick up PICK UP!_

> “Hello?”
> 
> “Steve. It’s Bucky.”
> 
> “Bucky! Oh, my God, you’re awake. Are you OK?”
> 
> “Yeah. Maybe. What you know about the Guardians of the Galaxy?”
> 
> “Not much. Warriors led by a human named Peter Quill. Potential allies against Thanos if he ever manages to bring the fight to us here. Tony spent some time with them a while back.”
> 
> “That why he wanted to arrange a meeting?”
> 
> “What? No. Damn it, we were on a mission. Ross has been waiting for all of us to leave Wakanda in order to force his way in and order them to surrender you. Bucky, _all_ the Hydra files are open. On the Internet. Anyone can get their hands on the activation phrase that brings out the Winter Soldier. _Anyone._ We’ve already intercepted bounties and black market bidding wars.”
> 
> “Shit. What are my official options?”
> 
> “Either a procedure to remove your hearing permanently or euthanasia. The UN is undecided.”
> 
> “They’re not willing to risk me ending up on the sunny side of a prison cell again.”
> 
> “No, they’re not. Tony says there might be a solution. Out there. Talk to Quill. Maybe he knows someone who can reverse Hydra’s conditioning.”
> 
> “The Wakandans couldn’t figure it out?”
> 
> “Not in the time they had. I’m sorry.”
> 
> “Yeah. I know. Not your fault, though.”
> 
> “It’s not yours, either.”
> 
> “So you’d trust this Quill.”
> 
> “I’d wanna hear what he and his team come up with.”
> 
> “Copy that.”
> 
> “…Bucky?”
> 
> “Yeah?”
> 
> “I don’t know how long you’ll be safe out there. The code words -- it’s only a matter of time before they reach someone in outer space. I’m sorry we couldn’t figure this out before…”
> 
> “A day late and a dollar short. It’s kind of our motto.”

And then the awkward silence that had followed. One second. Two. The call had cut off before he’d had to suffer through a third. And just like that, Bucky had blown almost half his share of the bounty on a single call.

But what a call. It changed everything.

A fraction of his remaining units he’d spent on some clothes (which he’d changed into right there in the store fitting room) and a bag for hauling around whatever shit he managed to accumulate. At least until he was either frozen or killed.

Rocket docked and powered down with a long sigh.

Yeah, it’d been a hell of a day. For all three of them.

Rocket locked down the ship and geared up in silence. Groot didn’t appear to be carrying anything and all Bucky had was his shoulder bag with a second set of new clothes, his “souvenir” knife, and the soft, Wakanda-made PJs in it. “What is this place?” Bucky asked just as Rocket slapped the hatch release.

“Merc medical,” he replied. “Procedures for a price, no questions asked.”

“You getting that chip on your shoulder looked at?”

“No, wise ass. I’m taking you to see Quill. Let you guys hash this out, humie-to-humie.”

And then Bucky figured Rocket would wash his hands of him. The twinge of disappointment he felt at the thought surprised him, but it really shouldn’t have. Stressful circumstances and all. As much as he’d hated the Hydra scientists and handlers, he’d needed them. A solid touchstone in a whirlpooling world that Bucky had felt like he was drowning in.

Still did.

This place was neither a junkyard nor a rest stop in the middle of outer space. It was a complex, a giant machine with soundproof walls. Kind of like one of the museums that Bucky had wandered through once upon a time, its shape and material designed to amplify the silence, giving visitors the impression that they were completely alone, even if they could see other people just a couple of feet away.

Presumably, Rocket followed the posted signs as he strutted through one doorway after another, but again, Bucky couldn’t make heads or tails of the writing. They got into an elevator and Rocket pushed a button, but the cab only descended what felt like one floor before it started moving sideways. Around they went and, just when Bucky was starting to get nauseous, out they walked. The corridor they were now in actually did resemble a hospital. The familiar scents of hand soap and disinfectant. Murmurs eking out through open doorways as visitors sat with patients.

“--do you think you’re doing?” a woman barked in the distance. “Lie down!”

“I’ve been lying down for two--three--oh my God, THREE DAYS!” a man squawked back. “If it were you, you’d be plotting how to strangle the next nurse who came in to check on you.”

“I’d be following doctors’ orders.”

“Oh. Sure you would.”

A second woman pointed out gently, “You have a broken skull. You should remain still.”

“Mantis is correct,” a second man quietly but firmly concurred and Bucky identified the room they were in. Just ahead on the right. “The skull is very important. It contains your brain.”

“Really?” the exasperated patient sassed. “Thanks for clearing that up! I had no idea!”

“Obviously,” the man assessed with genuine disappointment. “Otherwise you would not have allowed it to be placed in a vise.”

“I was trying to buy time--”

“You’re not a god anymore, Star Lord,” the first woman snapped.

“Please,” the woman named Mantis placated just as Rocket paused on the threshold and Bucky got a look at the scene.

A very human-looking man was lying prone on a hospital bed, his head encased in some sort of laser-array that vaguely resembled a cranium brace. A green-skinned woman with long, curling dark hair was glaring at him, arms crossed. A blue-gray skinned man with what looked like red burn scars covering his bare arms and torso also stared at the bed’s occupant. The fourth figure -- a slender woman with antennae and large dark eyes -- clasped her hands together and fretted, “Arguments do not provide healing energies.”

“Hey, no arguments here. So why don’t you try telling _her_ that,” the patient grumbled.

The green-skinned woman spun away on a growl. 

The branded man smiled proudly at the patient. “You are learning. Clearly, even someone as dense as you can be taught.”

“Eh,” Rocket opined from the doorway, “that remains to be seen. Everyone, meet the package. Courtesy of Tony frickin’ Stark.”

“He is awake,” Mantis said.

“Yeah,” Rocket snidely agreed. “I caught that, too.” To the bed’s occupant, he added, “You can thank Kraglin the next time you feel like shooting him.”

The man on the bed shrugged helplessly. “It’s the Ravager Code not to leave it alone.”

“You got a name?” the green-skinned woman demanded. She’d moved to place herself between the new arrival and the patient so Bucky stayed right where he was, arms at his sides, hands visible.

“They call me Bucky.”

The branded man squinted. “That is a name?”

“It is on Terra,” the patient insisted. “I’m Peter Quill. But the rest of the galaxy knows me as ‘Star Lord.’”

Rocket rolled his eyes, slapping a palm against his own brow. “Jackass,” he mumbled under his breath.

Quill continued, “I see you’ve met Rocket and Groot already.”

“Yeah. They gave me the ten-cent tour.” Bucky looked to the woman still blocking his path.

“Gamora,” she said with visible challenge.

“I am Mantis,” the woman with the antennae volunteered.

The big man with the brands murmured: “Drax.”

“Well! Now that we’re all friends,” Quill perkily declared. “I mean, I’m assuming. You being a friend of Tony Stark’s and all.”

It wasn’t a question, but it was. Bucky answered, “Not even remotely.” And of all the gazes that focused on him, Rocket’s was the one that he _felt_ \-- like needles digging into his skin. “He wants me dead, and I don’t blame him. But what’s worse is there are plenty of people back on Earth that want me alive.”

“How,” Rocket blurted, “is being alive _worse!?”_

“Because I kill people.”

Rocket blinked and then he snickered. He smacked the back of his paw against Groot’s leg, inviting him to share in the joke: “Oh, well, as long as it’s nothing serious…”

Bucky’s fingers twitched, itching to curl into fists. He forced himself to take a deep breath. “It is serious. I can’t control it. And just about anyone can control me.”

Rocket jeered. “So you’re some kind of living weapon? You think that makes you special? I’m thinking you and Gamora ought to sit down and have a little chat. The two of you got lots in common.”

“That is true,” Drax agreed. “Our wretched daughter of Thanos was also made into a weapon.”

“But I decide whether or not to kill,” she retorted, ignoring the slight completely.

Bucky sighed and put it all on the line because he couldn’t go back to Earth, and the people of space weren’t safe from him on this side of the cryo-pod. “For decades, they kept me in cryo-storage, waking me up whenever they needed…” Even now, he couldn’t say it out loud. “They called me the Winter Soldier. You should have Stark fill you in.”

As he shifted to retreat -- to find a break room or a cleaning closet or _something_ and just be away from these people and their evaluating gazes -- Quill flailed comically, snagging Bucky’s attention and breaking the tension in the room.

“Whoa! Whoa! Hold up there, pal. We talking brainwashing?”

“Behavioral conditioning,” Bucky not-quite-corrected. “No one’s figured out how to undo it yet.”

“Why do they not simply kill you?” Drax bluntly asked, befuddled, and Bucky had to respect the man’s gumption. (He hadn’t yet realized that Drax simply couldn’t help it. If Drax had a question, he asked it with virtually no thought to the response he’d provoke… most of the time.)

Bucky smiled sadly. “Oh, they’ve tried.” Scanning the people in the hospital room, Bucky repeated his earlier suggestion: “Talk to Stark. I know this--” He spread his arms, indicating himself. “--wasn’t what you signed up for. Hell, I didn’t sign up for it, either. Just…” Bucky shook his head, swallowed. “I need some air.”

Shouldering past Groot, he headed back down the corridor toward the elevator. Beside it, he spotted a door that didn’t belong to a patient’s room. On the other side of it, he found a waiting area with a “terrace.” There was a breeze (artificial) and the view (holographic) changed every half minute or so. Alien landscapes and silent city skylines. He sat down on a bench that looked like it was made of stone but very accommodatingly conformed to his shape.

And then he tried not to think of anything. Or anyone. Especially not Steve, who was as alone as any man could be, who’d thought he’d lost everything… until he’d found Bucky. The one person from Steve’s past that hadn’t been lost to time while Steve had slept the century away in that Hydra wreckage in the Arctic. But James Buchanan Barnes _was_ gone. Long gone. And Bucky had no idea what it would do to Steve if Bucky died on him now. There were days when Bucky didn’t see the point of making the effort to keep on going, but that fire in Steve -- what would happen to it if he thought Bucky were dead _again?_

That didn’t mean that Bucky couldn’t just disappear and then do the deed. But. He didn’t want it to end like this. Didn’t want to die with so much horror left in his wake. A legacy of murder. It was a hell of a note to end on and it turned his stomach.

So here he was, foolishly hoping that there really was an answer out here instead of more blind alleys with nothing but dead ends.

The door whispered open and Bucky tracked the sound of footsteps approaching. Not from behind, though.

_Smart move._

Bucky didn’t brace himself, but he didn’t relax, either. Not even when Gamora appeared at the edge of his vision.

“Do you want to be free of it? The conditioning?”

“Yes.”

“Then come back. Sit with us and we’ll call Stark. Figure this out. Together.”

Sucking in a breath, Bucky leaned back and demanded, “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” she lied with a thrust of her chin. “But Groot likes you. And Rocket says you’re a hell of a fighter.” With a wry tilt of her head, she added, “And I’ve never known him to have any respect for someone who’s missing a body part.”

Bucky huffed. “Fair warning, he’s gonna ask to borrow this thing at some point.” He shrugged his left shoulder, indicating the arm.

Gamora cast her gaze heavenward. “God help us. Do not encourage him.”

Bucky’s brows lifted in agreement because, yeah, he’d already figured that out for himself.

“Come on,” she urged with a nod back toward the door. “We’re ready to make the call. Just waiting on you.”

“Don’t you think it’ll be a little awkward with me listening in?”

“Don’t you think you have a right to hear what’s said about you?”

Hell, he wasn’t sure he had a right to anything. It was agony to even think about asking for a chance to do some good with what remained of his life. There was certainly no possibility of making things “right.” The past, the deaths, all that was done. He’d changed history, all right. _“Shaped the century,”_ Pierce had said. The thought of “shaping” the next however many decades left him shaking like a leaf.

But. He was being offered the chance to be included. To have a voice. To be part of the decisions that would have to be made about his future. And that was something he hadn’t had in a long time. Something he could barely remember. Something he’d left behind in Brooklyn after he’d stepped up and fallen in line, ready to serve his country.

Bucky wasn’t sure of much, but he was sure of this: he was done with serving. Done with being used.

He stood up. “Yeah, OK. But I think you should know,” he said and Gamora paused to listen carefully, brow quirked, “I’m sticking around for a little while. Rocket owes me a decent arm.” He nodded to the sad-looking diver’s appendage and Gamora squashed a smile.

“Understood.”


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky elected to sit in on the briefing with Tony Stark. Really, after the months he’d spent in Europe trying to both relearn the world and ignore the ever-present, slow-burning shame of being used over and over by men like Pierce for their political agendas and personal gain -- and after seeing the _look_ on Steve’s face because whenever Steve really looked at Bucky all he saw was a victim -- after all that, there was nothing Stark could say that could possibly be worse.

But he’d rather Stark think he was elsewhere. Given the animosity he had for the Winter Soldier, it just seemed like things would go smoother if Bucky were out of sight.

So after they buttoned up the hospital room and Bucky found himself a nook in the camera’s blind spot, Quill made the call.

“You look like shit,” Stark greeted. “I’d say that I’d love to see the other guy, except I’m pretty sure Gamora did that do you--”

Quill chuckled. “So obvious, huh?”

“And look, she’s sitting right there. Heya, gorgeous. Lethal as ever.”

“Tony,” Gamora greeted with a tolerant smile.

“Drax, you’re looking well. Rocket, I’m gonna have to guess how you’re doing under all that fuzz. Groot, whut up. Lovely lady with the antennae, a pleasure.” And then Stark zeroed back in on Quill: “Seriously, man. You’re not immortal anymore. Get over it.”

Rocket shrugged. “That’s what we keep telling him.”

“Actually,” Drax interrupted, looking confused at the byplay, “Quill was injured by a Kree bounty hunter while on a reconnaissance mission.”

“That turned into a frickin’ free-for-all, but that’s what you get when Star Lord here decides to take point.” Rocket crossed his arms and glared at Quill.

Stark’s sigh was just a little too sarcastic to be wistful. “Oh, how I have missed mocking your lack of self preservation. You have the intellect of a slice of cheese, Quill.”

“Says the guy who is 100% a dick.”

“Boys,” Gamora cut in, “can you pee for distance later? We don’t have all day.”

“Right you are,” Quill readily agreed, grinning like he’d somehow gained the upper hand. “Well, due to unfortunately foreseeable but totally unavoidable circumstances, the cargo is awake.”

Stark hissed out a cuss word and, with fingertips pressed to his temples, muttered, “If this is a joke, then it’s definitely not one of your best.”

“Do we look like we’re having ourselves a barrel of chuckle sauce right now?” Rocket shot back.

“Is he in the room with you?”

“Should he be?” Quill parried neatly.

Stark grunted, but chose not to comment. Instead he shifted, tapping something out of frame. “I’m sending you everything I have on the Winter Soldier directly to the _Milano’s_ computer. Over seventy years’ worth. But here are the highlights--”

As Stark summed up Hydra’s twin-wave technique for creating the Winter Soldier -- the first had enabled Bucky to survive the fall in the Alps and then the second had succeeded in molding him into an obedient and mindless weapon -- Bucky focused on the reactions he could read from Quill’s team. Quill was the picture of polite interest. Drax’s thoughtful frown didn’t budge. Gamora looked to be carved from stone, her expression unreadable. Rocket seemed fairly bored, occasionally inspecting his claws, but mostly he kept his arms crossed, feet kicking listlessly above the floor. Mantis’ antennae drooped with every fatal factoid mentioned, and Groot fidgeted with increasing distress.

He hadn’t looked all that damn upset a few hours earlier when Bneju Whukun had turned a corner and taken a sucker punch to the face. Groot had looked damn impressed with Bucky then as he’d bundled up their unconscious bounty and loitered toward the nearest Nova Corps on-site station for drop-off.

But now, as Tony Stark listed the Winter Soldier’s “Top ten greatest hits, no pun intended,” Groot was looking like he might actually find a corner to hide in.

So Bucky focused on the names, the dates, the kill methods that Stark bit out, one by one. Bucky closed his eyes, recalling how the chill from the melting snow had seeped into his boots on _that_ mission, and then there’d been the overwhelming scent of salt and brine just before he’d pulled the trigger during another.

Bucky was only briefly surprised when Stark skipped over December 16, 1991, but then of course that made sense: Stark was trying appear impartial. And, if Bucky were brutally honest with himself, he would have admitted that the most difficult part of that mission -- the only aspect he hadn’t been over-qualified for -- had been the swift, secure, and secret transportation of the serum, delivery guaranteed. Bucky had been chosen because he would unquestioningly obey. Another operative might have simply disappeared with it.

 _God._ Bucky felt sick.

And Stark wasn’t done yet: “This here is the footage we have from his most recent assault, when he broke out of the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre in Berlin -- which, by the way, is as secure a facility as they come… not that that means anything to you hooligans -- and killed a baker’s dozen of fully capable agents.”

At that, Bucky opened his eyes and watched because this was something he hadn’t seen before and still couldn’t remember doing. Why his memory was a blank this one time and yet he so clearly remembered all the others, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it had something to do with the commands he’d been given. Or maybe it was because no one had ever demanded a mission report in this particular aftermath. Whatever the reason, watching himself on the screen was like looking at a stranger. A killer. A monster that had chewed up some of the best-trained people on the planet and spat them back out so that it could keep on punching and pounding and inflicting pain.

Quill’s brows had arched well before the clip finally winked out, at which point, he uttered one, stretched out word: “Oookaaaay.” Nodding, he tucked his lips inward, forming a long, flat line of _what-have-we-gotten-ourselves-into?_

Mantis was visibly shaking, both hands pressed over her mouth.

Gamora appeared unaffected. Either she was unimpressed with the footage or Stark’s showmanship.

Groot whimpered and that was when Rocket snapped, “Thanks so much, Stark, for making your problem _our_ problem.”

Drax, however, beamed and slapped both palms on his thighs. “I look forward to doing battle with this man. A test of strength would be most invigorating!”

Stark rolled his eyes. “Drax, I’d say your enthusiasm for pain and violence is frightening, except I have friends that are even scarier than you.” Huffing a bit at Drax’s disgruntled scowl, Stark queued up something else for sending. “Here. One more file. Normally, I’d pretend this doesn’t even exist, but it’s practically a ringtone here, so there’s no reason not to share.”

“What is it?” Gamora asked with exaggerated patience.

“The audio prompt that will activate the Winter Soldier. Don’t thank me for it. I’m only sending it just in case you need it for something completely asinine, like dropping Barnes into Thanos’ backyard for a little fun and games. That’s the only use I can think of for him.”

“Uh-huh,” Quill said. “And what’s the prompt that shuts him off?”

“No idea. Good luck with that.” Stark’s smirk was grim. “If it’s any consolation, it’ll probably only take one of you dying to convince him to go back to cryo-storage. You can draw straws for who’s gonna take one for the team.”

“We’re not doing that,” Quill muttered. And if they’d been discussing anything else, his petulance would have been amusing.

Gamora nodded stiffly.

Drax harrumphed. “There’s no need to waste such a capable warrior.”

Stark, having already commented on Drax’s priorities, ignored him. “I leave it to you all, then. Do what you can. And when you can’t -- jettison the son of a bitch. Just don’t forget to send me a copy of the video.”

The screen went blank and Quill was the first one to twist around, wincing, to address Bucky. “What did you _do,_ man? To make Tony Stark, of all people, hate your guts.”

Bucky looked up from where he was bracing his elbows on his knees. “I killed his parents.”

“Why?” Mantis breathed, horrified.

“Because I was ordered to.” Bucky stood. “Stark’s right, you know. Jettisoning me into space would probably do the trick. Just something to keep in mind. Excuse me.”

This time, Bucky didn’t stop at the waiting room. He took the elevator up to the surface streets of the medical satellite and wandered until he found the _Milano’s_ berth. He stepped off of the main thoroughfare and up to the observation window, studying the sleek craft and the glaring stars beyond.

He didn’t wonder _why_ and he didn’t ask _how._ Bucky was past all that. Way past feeling helpless. Now he was standing firmly in a seething whirlwind of rage. Fury. Hatred for the people who had done this to him, turned him into this monster. And hatred for himself. For allowing it to happen at all.

His reflection in the window moved; the fingers of his right hand curled into a fist.

And then another motion. A slight figure sidling up beside him with blurry -- furry -- edges.

“Figured I’d find you here,” Rocket said.

“How’s that?”

“Well, from what I’ve seen so far, I’m pretty sure you’re having a worse day than me,” Rocket mused wryly.

“You can say that again.”

“And this is where I’d be. Hell, it’s where I pretty much always am. Staring back at the stars. Waiting for the cosmic sicko that we all know is out there to show its ugly god face.”

Bucky nodded. “Hence the pulse relay.”

“Hence the pulse relay,” Rocket agreed. “But hey, I heard you did alright bringing in that bounty with Groot.”

That _had_ felt good, for all that Bucky still didn’t know what the Nova Corps was or what Bneju Whukun had done. He thought to ask now and Rocket answered: “The Nova Corps is basically the law and order out here. Saner than the Kree, who _do_ buy people, by the way. And way easier to deal with than those humorless Sovereign jerks. And Bneju Whukun? Oh, he got his all right. Don’t feel bad about turning in a transmogger.”

“A transmogger?”

“Yeah. Say you wanna disappear -- you pay a transmogger to swap out your eyes and fingerprints, maybe ears and other identifying marks. Transmoggers tend to lurk at way stations. It’s a good place to pick up raw material, like hitchhikers.”

Bucky pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah. OK. I don’t feel bad at all for ruining his day.”

Rocket snickered.

“Sorry about borrowing Groot earlier. I didn’t know you guys were a team.”

Rocket’s brows bushed upward. “You didn’t ‘borrow’ Groot, man. He’s not a houseplant. He was just glad it cheered you up a bit.”

Bucky tucked his chin down and felt a grin tug at his mouth. “He’s a good buddy to have.”

“The best.” Rocket punched Bucky lightly on the leg. “C’mon. You need a full tour of the ship, maybe a crash course in navigating if we’ve got time before Drax and Groot get through the shopping list. For sure it won’t take long for Mantis to convince the doc to sign off on Quill’s discharge. They probably can’t wait to be rid of the idiot.”

“We’re heading out?” For what felt like the hundredth time today, he followed Rocket. “I thought Quill was gonna need more recovery time.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no cure for stupid--”

Bucky bit back a laugh as they traversed the space dock.

“--and Mantis is honestly his best bet at this point.”

Watching Rocket punch in the access code for the ship’s aft hatch, Bucky guessed, “She some kind of doctor?”

“An empath. Puts celestial beings to sleep just like that.” Rocket snapped his fingers with surprising effectiveness given how small his paws were… and the claws. “She’ll keep Quill outta the pilot’s seat and resting. Meanwhile, we’re heading for Berhert.”

The hatch finished hissing open and they ducked (well, Bucky ducked -- Rocket sort of marched) into the cargo hold.

“What’s Berhert?”

“An uninhabited planet of our acquaintance. Good place for you and Drax to really go to town.” 

“What?”

“Don’t get me wrong -- Stark’s little show was one helluva résumé, but we gotta figure out how you work, cutie. I mean, before we can start thinking long-term.”

“Long--” Bucky put out his right hand to stop Rocket from heading for the cockpit and, presumably, starting the tour. “Hold up. You guys can’t seriously be thinking about taking me on as one of the team.”

“What else did you think we were gonna do with you?”

Bucky’s mind blanked.

Rocket reached out and curled his rough, paw-like hand around Bucky’s thumb. “You think we ain’t been where you are?”

“Hunted?”

“Adrift,” Rocket corrected.

The look on his face made Bucky pause. “You can’t go home?”

“Don’t got a home to go to. Never did. Because I don’t count the laboratory where I was made as any kind of home. More like Hell.”

Bucky blinked. “Your people--species--family…?”

“These jackasses are my family,” Rocket announced, flapping his free arm to indicate the currently-empty ship, but Bucky could imagine it occupied. Crowded and close and boisterous.

Rocket’s ears perked. “So how’s about you give it a chance. Maybe we can fix you up, maybe we can’t, but we’re too frickin’ stubborn to give up.”

Bucky looked down at the paw still curled around his thumb and huffed out a weary laugh. It only took a slight adjustment to align their hands for a firm shake. “Here’s to one more chance.”

Rocket’s grip tightened and then slid away. “By the way, do I look like a rapoon to you?”

“A rap--? Wait, a raccoon?” Bucky checked.

“Yeah, whatever. And if the answer is ‘yes’, please _don’t_ be honest.”

This time, Bucky had to laugh, even if it was more of a chuckle. “There’s a resemblance,” he admitted, and then as Rocket grimaced, Bucky shook his head, “but you’re no raccoon.”

 _“Thank_ you. That’s what I keep telling Quill, the dummy.”

The smile lingered on Bucky’s face all through the tour and Rocket’s spiel on how to use the navigation console, mostly thanks to the quirky anecdotes Rocket irreverently shared. Including the one and only time they’d let Groot decide their shore leave location, which had been some sort of music festival where Drax had knocked down a stage, Gamora had wrestled security, and Quill had imbibed some concoction that had turned his eyebrows green made him talk in giggles for two days straight.

“He was this close--” Rocket pinched the air between his thumb and forefinger. “--to being put out of our misery. I ain’t kidding.”

“I believe you.” And Bucky did, because he’d been at the end of his rope with Stevie more times than he could count. “Sounds like Mantis was the only one who stayed out of trouble.”

“Nah, this was before she came along.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Aside from not shooting Quill, what were you up to during all that?”

“Eh, mostly I was here. Working.”

“Working.”

“Music’s not really… I mean, Quill and Groot are the ones that love the tunes.” Rocket shrugged. “I’ve only got a couple that I like listening to.”

“Humming along with.”

“What?”

“You do that. Did that. When you were working on my arm.”

“I did? Huh.”

“I won’t tell Quill.”

“See, I knew there was a reason I liked you. Now--” Rocket gestured to the navigation console. “--find us a jump point.”

Bucky tapped and swiped at the screen. “Found one. Goes to… Machepti -- am I saying that right?”

“Who knows.”

“Two hundred thirty clicks, bearing 2-1-5.”

Rocket leaned over Bucky’s arm to check the screen. “Good. You got the hang of it.” He slapped Bucky’s shoulder and grinned up at him.

Bucky’s smile widened and, suddenly, he was viscerally aware of how close they were. Just a tilt of his head was all it would take to bring them eye-to-eye. And Bucky had always been a sucker for brown eyes.

He recoiled from the thought, shock freezing in his veins like ice.

Rocket cleared his throat.

The hull door hissed open and Bucky didn’t think he imagined Rocket’s murmur of “Thank God” but it was hard to be completely sure as Mantis’ voice filled up the silent spaces in the ship:

“Now, be good and do what the doctor said. To bed with you.”

“I don’t need to--damn it, Gamora, we are _going_ to the cockpit.”

“No, _we_ are not. _You_ are going to lie down and let your last regen session do its job.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“How about we let Mantis be the boss of you?”

“Ooh, can I? It would be such fun!”

“I hate you both.”

“You love us,” Mantis insisted with childlike innocence, “although you love Gamora significantly more than you love me.”

Quill groaned. “God, let this nightmare end already.”

“If you cooperate and get some rest, I promise to forget all about it,” Gamora bargained gently.

Rocket chuckled and then hollered in the direction of the hold, “YEAH, BUT I WON’T! NIGHTIE-NIGHT, QUILL.”

“ASSHOLE!”

There was a brief shuffle and then Gamora stuck her head in the cockpit as Mantis and Quill’s footsteps sounded on the ladder leading below deck. “Drax and Groot?”

“Not back yet,” Rocket reported dutifully.

She stretched out an arm to push a button on the main console -- a radio of some sort -- and called, “Drax, come in.”

“I will once I have arrived,” he very literally replied.

Gamora rolled her eyes. “How much longer will that be?”

“We have collected all of the supplies and are returning now.”

“Great. Gamora, out.” She bent down to inspect a panel, asking Rocket, “All fixed?”

He scoffed. “Of course.”

“Then I’ll help Groot and Drax lock it down.”

She ducked back into the lower deck and Bucky looked at Rocket for a long, speculative moment.

“What?”

“I remember you saying you had places to be. What’s the rush?”

Rocket sighed. “I guess you oughta know… The Kree -- those crazy, people-purchasing jerkwads I mentioned?”

Bucky nodded.

“They got a bounty on Quill. A couple. Maybe a dozen. And by now, they’ll have figured out what went down the other day and where we are. There aren’t that many places to go to off-planet for medical services.”

And therefore, someone would be watching for Peter Quill to wash up here. “Ah.”

“Don’t feel so special anymore, do you?” Rocket teased in a warm tone, humor sparkling in his eyes.

Bucky grinned. “Practically invisible.” And then his mirth fizzled out as he remembered that moment back in a bar in another life -- cigar smoke and carousing to the tune of a tack piano and being completely and utterly ignored by Agent Peggy Carter. She’d had eyes for Captain America alone. _“I’m invisible,”_ Bucky had lamented, flabbergasted with disbelief, to a blushing and bashful Steve. _“I’m turning into you. It’s like a horrible nightmare.”_

A pat to his arm jarred him out of the memory. “I just heard Drax and Groot get in,” Rocket said, pulling back. “Last chance to hit it if you gotta go before the next hyper-jump.”

Bucky swallowed. “Thanks for the warning.”

Maybe the third time really was a charm, because the next hyper-jump didn’t feel so bad. He wondered if Gamora sitting in the copilot’s seat had anything to do with that. Her hands flew over various holographic projections, maybe in an effort to smooth out the ride. The landing was a little on the rough side, though. Bucky winced as Quill bellowed from below-deck:

“EASY ON MY SHIP, GUYS!”

“It’s still better than _your_ last Berhert landing,” Gamora retorted without bothering to raise her voice. She gave Rocket a pointed look. A hostile one.

His answering smile showed a lot of fang. Each and every one of them, in fact. “You survived. Let it go already. Sheesh.”

“I wish to consume sustenance,” Drax declared, standing from his seat and looming over Bucky, who was staring out at the dreary rainy day they’d flown into and landed in the middle of. The trees beyond were lush and green and, for a moment, it was almost like being back in Italy, tromping through rough terrain after obliterating that first Hydra facility.

Drax said, “Fellow warrior, would you care to join me?”

“Um, yeah,” Bucky replied slowly, blinking as he realized that his stomach was echoingly hollow. “Sounds good.”

“WHAT’S FOR DINNER?” Quill called out with zero intention of going to sleep anytime soon. In fact, it sounded like he was making his way to the common area, an obstinate believer in “first come, first served.”

Bucky surveyed his companions and, seeing both Gamora and Rocket busy powering down the engines, kept his comments about the universality of inedible hospital food to himself.

Dinner was all right. “Yaro root,” Drax called it. Grilled with some sort of bright red sauce. Paired with half a plate of steamed, pink grains and yellow-green nuts. The pile of chicken bones on Bucky’s plate turned out to be some kind of insect legs. He told himself it was an exotic variety of crab and it did wonders for improving the experience.

“Caffeine time!” Quill insisted, leaning back on his stool. While Drax had been serving up their portions, Quill had gestured Groot through the unearthing of a seventh seat just for Bucky, but he didn’t trust the thing not to crumble sideways on him if he so much as shifted his weight. “Who’s turn is it?”

“Rocket’s!” Mantis declared, looking delighted.

Gamora closed her eyes in abject pain. “So soon?”

“Can you maybe not serve our guest your usual engine sludge?” Quill singsonged, batting his lashes. “I know it’s gonna be a challenge, but--”

“To what? Shove your cup up your butt? No challenge at all,” Rocket sassed, turning toward the galley.

Groot sat up straighter and spoke in clear support for Rocket’s efforts. “I am _Groot.”_

“Well,” Rocket answered, “it’s nice to know _someone_ appreciates my technique.”

“Ooh, I enjoy it very much!”

“That’s two!” Rocket crowed.

“Mantis doesn’t count. She doesn’t know any better,” Gamora muttered, massaging her temples.

“Rocket,” Drax murmured as if speaking in confidence despite five witnesses, “refrain from garnishing mine with your fur, please.”

“But that’s the best part!”

Mantis clapped her hands. “It really is! It feels so funny going down!”

Despite Mantis’ enthusiasm, Bucky wasn’t worried. In fact, he was having too much fun listening to their banter to worry. Even when he looked down into the steaming cup that Rocket shoved into his hand and saw, yes, two distinct hairs floating on the surface of the dark blue liquid.

He took a sip and picked the hairs off of his tongue. “Not bad,” Bucky told Rocket, who was trying very hard to look indifferent to his reaction.

“No shit?”

Bucky’s brows arched. “Was there supposed to be some in here? Haven’t gotten to it yet.”

Beneath the table, clawed toes kicked him in the side of his knee. Quill cackled until he had to brace his barely-healed head in his hand. Gamora pressed her lips together, fighting a grin.

“No shit,” Drax assured Bucky quite seriously. “This is not that kind of drink.”

“Good to know,” Bucky said and, catching Rocket’s eye, winked before he could stop himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark plays a key role in Decepticonsensual’s Bucket fic (“A Fool Unto Himself”) in introducing Bucky to the Guardians of the Galaxy and it was one of those moments. One of those “BOOM -- HEADCANON ACCEPTED” moments. (^_~)
> 
> I’m not sure when Tony Stark met and befriended the Guardians of the Galaxy, but I’ve decided he doesn’t know Mantis personally. And, yes, according to the timeline in this fic, tiny!Groot chose the music festival for the Guardians’ shore leave.
> 
> Oh, and I want to talk about Groot: Groot looks worried when he sees what Bucky is capable of not because Groot is worried about getting hurt himself but because he’s worried about what Bucky could do to his friends. Also, Groot understands that Bucky was made in a way similar to how Rocket was made and imagining the pain Bucky must have gone through in order to become what he is now horrifies Groot (because Groot was there on Knowhere when Rocket got drunk and screamed about how he didn’t ask to get made or be torn apart and put back together over and over -- Groot might be kinda slow when it comes to understanding new things, but these are concepts that he has already been exposed to... including when he witnessed Ronan kicking the crap out of Drax on Knowhere and he did not like seeing his friend hurt and left for dead).
> 
> Not sure how many people Bucky killed in Berlin after Zemo activated him. I went with thirteen (a baker’s dozen) because I thought it sounded like something Tony would say. (Yes, I am that shallow.)
> 
> I don’t really have an inspiration for “transmoggers.” I haven’t even seen “Minority Report.” I just borrowed from “transmogrification.”


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky was not winking once Drax set his emptied cup down and herded Bucky outside into the rain.

“Drax! What are you thinking?” Gamora shouted after him. “Bucky just woke up from cryo-stasis!”

“No, no, it’s OK,” Bucky felt compelled to argue. In all truth, his previous handlers had never given him any time to orient himself. He’d been thawed, prepped, activated, and loosened onto the world in a matter of hours. He was used to hitting the ground running.

He was not used to having this much brain at his disposal, though, and he was pretty sure he was going to over-think things to the point of embarrassing himself. And then the Guardians wouldn’t take him seriously. And someone would end up dead because of it.

So the instant he and Drax cleared the hatch, Bucky spun, dislodging the bulky man’s grip on his mechanical shoulder, and sent his right foot slamming square into his chest.

Drax flew, landed on his back. Hard.

But Bucky was already charging him and, just as Drax sat up, _both_ of Bucky’s feet sent him back into the mud.

And then: headlock.

“Dead!” he shouted in Drax’s ear.

A hand came up, fisted in Bucky’s shirt, hauled him over a massive shoulder.

Both feet in the soft earth -- _splash!_ \-- twist and launch--

Bucky’s left shoulder rammed into Drax’s abdomen.

A gust of hot breath in the misty rain. Drax grunted, gasped--

Backhand fist to Drax’s--

_NO._

Bucky pulled the strike, braking to a stop just before the blow connected.

He spun away, lashed out again.

This kick sent Drax into a tree. He flopped face-down on the ground.

Bucky didn’t pursue. He waited, listening to the silence and feeling the gazes of the other Guardians on him.

“I think I need to change my pants,” Quill whined.

“Yeah, I can smell it from here,” Rocket retorted in empty reflex.

And then Drax slammed both palms into the mud -- once, twice, a third time -- and he leaped to his feet, laughing. “Yes! Finally, a true adversary!”

Bucky’s smile was more a wince because, shit, he’d barely gotten started.

Cackling with glee, Drax charged him, long, beefy arms swinging and broad chest pumping air--

They crashed together and, this time, Bucky didn’t pull his punches.

Drax rolled with it, came up with a fist meant for Bucky’s chin--

Dodge back, duck down, shoulder between Drax’s knees and Bucky spun him off balance.

A knee to Bucky’s head. A blind swing in retaliation and another and another and Drax was under him, punching as hard as Bucky and this was the moment to go in for the kill--

But his left hand--too weak.

Drax reared up.

Bucky head butted him back down--

“Think you better get in there, Gamora,” Quill suggested quietly. “Give Drax a breather.”

“With pleasure.”

Bucky put up his right arm, blocking the first kick she sent toward his head. Her legs tangled around his torso and he knew this fighting style. Steve’s friend, Natasha.

A shin and knee pinning Drax across the shoulder and chest, Bucky’s right hand closed over a slender arm. He tossed Gamora aside. She landed neatly, lashed out, drew Bucky off and away from Drax who was alternately gasping and chortling.

Another kick, this one meant to make him stumble aside. He caught her leg, spun, knelt, and threw her into Drax. Drax stayed down, but Gamora rocked with the momentum, leaping back to her feet and rushing Bucky.

Her strikes were fast and her blows strong, but Bucky didn’t try to do more than keep pace with her as he waited for Drax to get his shit together.

And then, roaring like a bear, he launched himself at Bucky’s back.

He barely felt the crush of long arms wrapping around his torso--

Elbow to Drax’s face, kick to Gamora’s thigh, Bucky pedaled his feet, climbing up and flipping out of Drax’s grasp. Landing hard.

Right hook to Drax’s head from behind, clutching the dazed man’s sturdy shoulder, Bucky landed both feet in the center of Gamora’s chest. She fell back. Rolled. Crouched, panting lightly.

Drax stumbled to the side, blinking hard.

Bucky paused, waited for Round Two.

“Holy shit,” Quill opined.

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah,” Rocket agreed lightly, “I’ve seen worse. Mostly from Quill.”

“Shut up, fur ball.”

Gamora pushed herself to her feet. Drax focused on Bucky. Neither of them attempted to rush him. When the moment stretched, Bucky checked, “That it for now?”

“For now,” Gamora agreed, a corner of her bruised mouth tugging into a grin. She waited until Bucky lowered his guard and then gave him a companionable slap on the shoulder. “But we won’t be going easy on you tomorrow.”

“Human warrior,” Drax declared, stomping closer and beaming, “You defy your species’ pathetically weak constitution. I look forward to our next match.”

 _Unbelievable._ Bucky snorted and bobbled his head in either a nod or a shake because what the hell. These people were crazy. But maybe, just maybe, they were strong enough to deal with Bucky.

The Winter Soldier, however, was another issue altogether. And as freeing as it was for Bucky to know -- deep down _know_ \-- that he couldn’t break Drax and Gamora with an unchecked punch, he was terrified of a time when it wasn’t him in the driver’s seat. When the Winter Soldier was at the wheel.

“On a scale of one to ten,” Quill murmured as Drax declared his intention to take a shower and Gamora threatened, low and deadly: “Don’t let me catch you using my shampoo.”

Hearing that, Quill paused and snorted at the baffled look on Bucky’s face. “Scale of one to ten,” he began again, “what was that?” He nodded toward the churned up mud beyond the _Milano’s_ open hatch.

Bucky shrugged. “A three.”

“A… three?”

“A solid three.”

“Holy… OK, look, we’re gonna need a game plan here. And I’ve got an idea of where to start.”

“Oh,” Rocket butted in, arms crossed, “is this anything like your 12% of a plan to stop Ronan? Because that was basically a vague idea that you bullshitted up on the spot.”

“Hey. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Because you were part god at the time,” Gamora reminded Quill.

“And,” Rocket hassled him, “Gamora knew how to get shit done in enemy territory. Plus, I brought my game. What did you _actually_ do again?”

“I shot Ronan!”

“Oh, right… with _my_ Hadron Enforcer!”

“Which, I think, took an unprecedented amount of courage. Am I right?” Quill swiveled this way and that, gesturing expansively, inviting applause and acknowledgement. When no grandiose ovation was forthcoming, he hinted, “Untested weapon in my hands?? Whipped up pretty much overnight by a batshit crazy raccoon??”

“I am not a raccoon, ya d’ast Terran!”

Quill put up both hands. “Fine. Fine. _Back_ to the issue at hand.”

“Oh, so we’re not going to talk about Drax’s gold-star performance? Because I heard he shot Nebula when she started talking trash and I would’ve liked to see that.”

“It was good,” Gamora assessed conversationally. “You should’ve been there.”

“Next time,” Rocket vowed.

“I am thinking,” Quill loudly interrupted, “that we should give Mantis the lead on this one.”

“Me?” She hadn’t said a thing during the fight or after it, merely forced an encouraging smile when Drax, giddy with whatever his species’ equivalent of adrenaline was, had flexed his muscles in celebration on his way to the shower. “But I cannot fight!”

“No,” Quill drawled, “but you can calm him down.” To Bucky, he said, “It’s an empath thing.”

Bucky’s brows drew together. “I’m… not entirely sure it’ll be that easy. I couldn’t tell you what goes through my head when I’m activated.”

“So, step one,” Quill proposed, gesturing between them, “Mantis needs to evaluate you. Normal you and then single-minded assassin you. Get a, a--whatcha call it--a baseline!”

Mantis shrank back and Bucky stayed very still.

Gamora put out a hand to each of them. “But not before Drax and I have a better understanding of your capabilities.”

Rocket let out a tiny sound. Almost a defeated whine. “I’ll get started on making some restraints.”

“No! No, that--” Bucky stopped, his gaze darting from one face to another. He was breathing hard, remembering the feel of metal clamping down on his right arm, his legs -- his left arm locked in place and the ominous whir of the machine as electrodes pressed against his face and the pop of energy and the pain and he was helpless and prone in Hydra’s clutches, belly metaphorically exposed, his mind virtually being pulled apart--

“Hey. Bucky,” Gamora coaxed and he wrestled back the terror and agony and building panic to focus on the sound of her voice. “You get a say in this, OK? But we need to be able to stop you. Safely.”

“Ye-yeah. That’s what I want, too.” He just wasn’t sure he could survive being back _there_ again. Not for real. Prince T’Challa had asked Bucky why he’d run -- if he hadn’t been the one to set off the bomb in Vienna that had killed King T’Chaka, then why had he run? This was why. _This._

“Groot?” Quill asked, spinning around to address the team member in question. “You think you can handle Bucky?” Groot looked doubtful and Quill added, “Just long enough for Mantis to get in there and put him to sleep or something.”

“Hmm,” Groot said with a brave nod.

“Yeah! OK!” Quill nodded in satisfaction. “We have a plan.”

“You have the _first step_ of a plan,” Rocket pointed out.

“But, y’know, it’s coming together.”

“We can do this,” Gamora declared with confidence and then, in the following beat of silence, the sound of running water and splashing filtered through. Suddenly, her lips pulled back in a snarl: “Damn it! Drax is going to use up all the recycled water.”

Bucky watched her race off.

“She’s right,” Quill assured Bucky and then paused to clarify: “About Drax _and_ about us being able to do this. Hell, she’s always right. It’s annoying as hell.”

“DRAX!” Gamora hollered from the depths of the ship, banging her fist on the shower door. “SHUT OFF THAT WATER NOW. BUCKY AND I STILL NEED TO GET CLEANED UP. SEPARATELY!”

“Nice,” Rocket commented. “Important clarification there.” And then he looked up as Groot moved toward the open hatch and misty rain. “Where you going?”

“I am Groot?”

“No, I’m not going with you. A little water’s not going to bulk _me_ up.” He scoffed and, in an undertone, added, “For us mammals, what goes in has gotta come back out.”

Bucky grinned at Rocket and then sighed at Groot. “I feel like I should apologize in advance. There’s going to be damage.”

Groot patted Bucky on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” Rocket translated. “It grows back.”

“Just the kind of friend I need,” Bucky mumbled.

Groot smiled and then climbed out of the ship, stretching his arms outward and up to catch the rain.

Sighing, Bucky forced himself to ask Mantis, “So, how do we do this? Or, when do you want to start?”

She looked at Bucky briefly before her worried gaze slid away. “I think,” Mantis said slowly, “we should be sitting down. For the first time.”

“OK.”

“OK!” Quill approved.

“OK,” Rocket sighed out.

But neither of them offered to leave. Instead, they brought out a pair of stools from the galley table. Bucky sat. Mantis perched on her seat. “This will not hurt you.”

Something in her tone alerted Bucky to the fact that what they were about to attempt was still risky. “But you might get hurt,” he realized.

“That depends on you.”

“But, dude,” Quill reminded him, “you can’t help it. I mean, you shouldn’t try to think about rainbows and cupcakes. Just feel what you feel. Baseline, remember?”

Bucky looked from Quill to Mantis and back again. “But just this today, right? The Winter Soldier’s baseline comes later.”

“Way later,” Rocket promised grimly.

Taking a steadying breath, Bucky extended his right arm toward Mantis. Her small, slender hand settled over his bare wrist, fingers curling just enough to hold on, not hold down.

Her eyes closed and antennae flexed as she inhaled deeply. Bucky, meanwhile, was back to holding his breath.

Her lashes fluttered and she gave him a genuine smile. “Do not be afraid.”

But he was. Of the one thing he couldn’t run away from. “Kind of a habit.”

She didn’t argue. “Tell me about your planet.”

“Earth. The countryside looks like this--” He nodded toward the damp forest. “--in some places.”

“And the place you are from?”

“Brooklyn.” He remembered his childhood misadventures with Stevie. Hell, he even recalled hearing the sound of fists connecting from the depths of an alley outside the picture show and finding Stevie on the wrong end of some meathead’s massive ego. God, he missed those times. Life had been simple. Bucky had been the one looking out for everyone, including little Stevie Rogers. Who’d grown up to be Goddamn Captain America.

“America,” Bucky added. “My country.” The land he’d left home to fight for. The land that wanted him dead now.

Mantis stiffened and Bucky grated out, “Ask me something else.” Anything else.

“Your family?”

Dead. All dead now except for Steve. Stevie. Captain America. What a hell of a mess -- that was what Bucky was feeling.

“Who are you thinking of now?”

“A friend. He’s like a brother to me.”

“You love him so much it hurts,” Mantis stated, her serene voice straining with Bucky’s tension. “But you feel betrayed, too. You do not forgive him. Or yourself.”

Bucky pulled back, breaking their connection and startling Mantis’ eyes open. “I… That’s it. I’m done. For today.”

“I understand.” She nodded agreeably. “I will ask your permission before I touch you again.”

“I think that’s smart.”

She moved back into the ship, leaving Bucky with Quill and Rocket.

“You, uh, wanna talk about it?” Quill offered with award-winning awkwardness.

“No.”

“OK. Gonna go, uh, check on the new pulse relay deal.”

Rocket sneered. “Don’t break it.”

“Hey, I’ve been working on ships like this since I was ten years old--”

“Which explains why the first _Milano_ was a pile of junk.”

“Jealous,” Quill singsonged, stomping toward the cockpit.

A moment of silence throbbed in the hull before Rocket idly mused, “Feel like shooting something?”

The stark contrast between lackadaisical tone and harsh meaning cracked open the vault door of Bucky’s chest. He breathed. Huffed. Chuckled. “Yeah, actually. That sounds… great.”

Grinning, Rocket yanked a pair of laser rifles from the hull cabinet and, holding one out to Bucky, said, “First to twenty?”

He had no idea what Rocket was talking about, but Bucky didn’t care. “You’re on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “looking after everyone” -- according to Marvel Wiki, Bucky was the oldest of four children, so he was probably a professional big brother as a young man. I don’t know the actual number of brothers versus sisters he had, so I’m leaving that point purposely vague.
> 
> As per my headcanon, Bucky is the kind of person who has always needed an anchor, and his role as Steve’s protector -- Steve needing Bucky -- was a major touchstone for him (because his siblings would eventually grow up, get married, or move away, but Bucky probably assumed that Steve would ALWAYS need him). So when Steve machismo’ed into Captain America, Bucky was literally set adrift, and I’m honestly not sure if he got his bearings before he was recaptured by Hydra (but I’m thinking he didn’t).
> 
> Regarding Bucky versus Drax and Gamora:  
> Like, I KNOW that Gamora and Drax would probably come out on top against Bucky (or even the Winter Soldier) because their respective physiologies are hella impressive, but at this point in the story, no one is honestly trying to hurt anyone. Drax and Gamora are feeling Bucky out (and vice versa), so they’ll be dialing it up little by little. Still, they’re not trying to figure out how to KILL him. They’re trying to figure out how to HELP him, and that includes building Bucky’s trust, not just in them but in himself.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The English translation of Russian words is shown in bold, italicized text. (FYI.)

The following days fell into a pattern. A strange pattern that didn’t line up with the actual days and nights on Berhert. The planet spun so fast that Bucky regularly counted two nights in a single twenty-four hour “day” of activity.

Despite its modest size, the _Milano_ was like any other militant outfit in that someone was always awake, on duty, scanning for threats. The rotations were roughly based on the natural sleep cycles of their respective species.

Bucky didn’t own a watch, so he couldn’t keep precise track, but it seemed that Drax’s home world must be similar to Berhert with its short days and nights. Gamora could stay awake almost there times as long, but she’d been modified, Rocket had said, so Bucky wasn’t really sure if that was a factor. Mantis nodded off every time it got dark and Groot dozed for three quarters out of every hour, it seemed.

Quill was not a “morning” person, but Bucky was still in that soldier’s state of high alert, so he took first shift until Quill inevitably shuffled into the galley some hours later. Rocket, though… Bucky wasn’t sure if he _could_ sleep -- he was constantly futzing with this or fiddling with that. And whenever Bucky did lay down in his bunk next door, he could hear the soft scrapes, clangs, and sparks of an engineer diligently crafting a device in his workshop.

“Do not go in there unless I give the OK,” Rocket had warned him during the tour of the ship and Bucky didn’t need to be told twice.

He did, however, have plenty of opportunities to observe the movements of his shipmates at all hours. Sometimes it was something as simple as footsteps in the corridor that pulled him from uneasy rest. Others, it was the nightmares, the memories, the horror that shoved Bucky upright on a gasp, pulse racing and cold sweat turning sticky on his neck.

A stroll through the galley for a glass of water usually helped. Along with a brief exchange of words with whoever happened to be awake. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince him that his surroundings were real. After that, he could settle back down on his bunk and close his eyes for a while longer.

Sunrise was usually followed by a sit-down with Mantis. The emotions she pulled from him with her childlike prompts were… well, too much sometimes. Which was why Bucky usually followed those sessions with sparring if either Gamora or Drax were game or target practice alongside Rocket because Rocket was always raring to go. His maniacally gleeful approach to emptying a clip at zooming targets was comforting, in a way. Because Rocket didn’t hold back and he didn’t expect Bucky to, either.

It was damn nice to feel almost normal, not despite the weapon in his hands, but because of it.

After a long, night-day-night of pilot simulations in the cockpit, assisting Groot with cleaning the windfall out of the engines, enduring another round of gentle questions from Mantis, and an honest attempt to knock down a couple of trees in a brawl with Drax and Gamora, Bucky was just finishing his shower when there was a tap on the bathroom door. Low. Too low to be anyone other than Rocket unless Quill was messing with him.

And Bucky knew him well enough by now not to rule that out entirely.

Checking to make sure the towel was snug around his waist, Bucky said, “C’mon in.”

It was Rocket and the sight of Bucky brought him up short on the threshold before a stubborn look pulled at his expression and he grabbed for something on the shelf. Dental floss, as it turned out. Because whatever Gamora had fed them for dinner had been on the stringy side.

Bucky shifted over to give Rocket and his elbows room to work.

Rocket bared his teeth at the mirror as he yanked out an arm’s length of floss. He faced forward with an air of determination, but his gaze darted over when Bucky shook out a clean hand towel from the rack and started drying his hair. “Is this you just being nice or do you really not mind sharing?”

Bucky shrugged. He doubted he would have let any of the others in this tiny, steam-filled room with him because, to be honest, Bucky wasn’t all that sure that anyone bigger than Rocket would fit. And as for sharing, it had been so long since he’d had anything that anyone had wanted him to share that he simply hadn’t clocked it.

Hair no longer dripping, he scrubbed his hands over the short beard on his neck, cheeks, jaw, and chin. But a shave would have to wait a little longer; the only knife he had was not gonna work: no way was he putting an alien, serrated blade that close to his jugular. And it still didn’t feel right asking Quill or Drax if he could borrow their razors. Or whatever they used to get the job done. He’d have to pick up his own stuff once they had some downtime in civilization.

“Don’t think you’ll be offending anyone if you decide to keep it,” Rocket said, taking a break mid-flossing.

Bucky’s lips twitched. “You might be biased.”

“Yeah.” Rocket scritched a paw through his own fur, angling his snout left, and then right in the mirror. “It’s working for me.”

“I’m a fan,” Bucky gamely admitted because everything else he came up with made him imagine a bald Rocket and that was just wrong.

“Um, uh,” Rocket mumbled and Bucky found himself wondering if not-raccoons could blush under all that fur. Clearing his throat loudly, Rocket asked, “So how much less pathetic would those punches of yours be if you had a decent left arm?”

“What’s the highest percentage I can pick?”

“Infinity.”

Bucky accepted that. “They’d be infinitely less pathetic.”

“Then I’ll get right on that.”

“Left,” Bucky teased, nodding to the appendage in question. “The right one’s all set.”

“Oh, boy,” Rocket groused, rolling his eyes. “That was awful.”

“Yeah?”

“Wit rating: zero.”

Grinning, Bucky let Rocket have the last word and sidled past him and out into the corridor with a quiet, “See you tomorrow.”

He passed Drax’s closed door -- there was some mighty snoring happening on the other side -- and then Mantis’, which was open a crack and spilling warm light into the narrow hallway -- she was singing softly as she moved about, doing what Bucky didn’t know. Putting laundry away, maybe.

And then, just past Rocket’s berth, Bucky shouldered open his own door. The tininess of the space was familiar by now. It had a porthole, but the room had once functioned as a storage closet if he was reading the empty slats on the walls right. Places where shelves had slotted in. But it was big enough for a bed that was just big enough for Bucky. He hung his towel up on a hook that had been left behind and pulled on his Wakandan clothes. The backpack he’d bought at the space hub rolled up well enough into a pillow-shaped headrest -- not too soft -- and he reached back, stretching to tap the light switch.

Darkness. Not the darkness of outer space. Not the darkness of grimy, underground Siberian cells, either. A darkness that hummed with energy rather than leaked winter chill. Faint sounds in the distance, muffled by walls. Quill was arguing with Gamora near the ladder above deck in hushed tones and exasperated hisses. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Mantis was opening and closing drawers at telling intervals -- definitely laundry. Drax was still snoring. The next door down opened and closed and then was followed by faint sounds of metal and wires and blow torch flame. Intermittent humming.

Groot was the quietest. Of course. He didn’t say much. Didn’t make much noise when he walked, either, for his size. Bucky wondered what Groot did in his room. Did walking trees sleep in actual beds? Read books? Dust corners?

After nearly a week of cohabiting with the Guardians of the Galaxy, there was still so much Bucky didn’t know about them.

“Jesus,” Bucky remarked, staring up into the darkness at a ceiling he couldn’t see, suddenly awed. He was hyper-jumps away from Earth (however far that was), on a space ship, rooming with a bunch of aliens and a human that had, apparently, been immortal at some point.

Never, ever in his life -- not even as a boy in Brooklyn -- had he imagined anything like this for himself. Hell, he never would have thought that aliens and alien worlds were even possible. Just fantastical stories, illustrations on rag paper. When he’d looked up at the stars, all he’d seen had been dead myths and fanciful legends. Ancient history. And now here he was. Because of what he was. Or, what he had been. What he could still be.

Unstoppable.

The reminder jarred him, shoved him out of the warm bubble of safe routine he’d fallen into in recent days. How could he have let himself forget how dangerous he was? The shit that Hydra had put inside his head was still there. Like a drawer without a lock that anybody could open up and dig around inside.

He’d worn out his welcome on Earth. How long would it take him to wreck the lives of people here in outer space?

Bucky closed his eyes on a sigh and, even though it had been ages since he’d bothered to say his prayers, he prayed now. Prayed that it wasn’t too late to fix him. Prayed that the cost wouldn’t be tallied in lives.

And when the worry finally exhausted his reservoir of strength, he slept.

Woke to another day. Tiptoed into the galley to be greeted by Mantis’ bright smile and a welcoming hum from Groot. Drax was probably out hunting for fresh meat again and Gamora looked busy with navigation charts, so Bucky took his time sniffing his way through the containers in the cupboards and drawers until he ended up with a dark green plum and a packet of brown juice that smelled like raspberries.

“Would Quill be able to eat either of these?” he asked his table mates, as per usual.

Mantis frowned thoughtfully. “I think so.”

Groot nodded once, looking serene.

So, Bucky gave it a go.

Surprisingly, Mantis got up from her seat and moved closer to him before holding up her hand. It was a little early for therapy, but Bucky nodded for her to go ahead. Given that he was using his right hand to eat with, she pressed her palm to his bare bicep.

“What did you eat on your world?”

An easy question today. He relaxed. “Coffee. Some toast. Glass of milk. Couple of eggs. For breakfast,” he tacked on as an afterthought, because meals were just meals here what with everyone sleeping and waking at odd hours.

More easy questions followed until Groot wandered off somewhere outside and Drax eventually stomped in. “Bucky.” (Drax had ceased calling him things like “human warrior” and “human who calls himself Bucky” following their second and third sparring sessions, respectively.) He announced with sincere brevity, “There is a place we must explore. You will accompany me.”

If Bucky hadn’t known better, he would have thought this was Drax’s ham-handed attempt at assigning them joint reconnaissance duty. But Bucky did know better. Because the surrounding area had been explored backwards and forwards days ago. Paired with Mantis’ gentle probing, Bucky could guess what was coming. The fact that Groot, Rocket, and Quill were nowhere in sight and Gamora was certainly capable of taking a shortcut with Mantis in tow merely clinched it. Today was the day they’d be meeting the Winter Soldier.

Well, at least Bucky wouldn’t be blindsided by it. Like last time.

He tossed the plum pit in the composter and the empty juice packet in the recycler. “Lead the way,” he said.

“I understand your decision not to carry weapons on your person while aboard Quill’s ship,” Drax blurted quietly, a pros pros of nothing a few minutes and some forest-tromping later. “But it will not be practical when you are fighting alongside us.”

“Yeah.”

“When did you accept that we are not your enemy?”

That pulled a frown from Bucky. “As a whole?” He shook his head. “Can’t really say.”

And it was a hell of a realization, too, that Bucky no longer thought of things in terms of “us” versus “them,” which was what an Army sergeant would do. He’d singled each of the team out individually, taking things one moment at a time, because alliances could and did shift in the blink of an eye.

“You’ve always been clear about where you stood, Drax.”

The big man stopped and faced Bucky. “You will never have any doubt as to my position. I am told I am very conspicuous. But stealth is a skill I am interested in acquiring.”

Honestly unsure of what to say to that, Bucky nodded and they started moving again, damp twigs snapping under their boots.

Drax continued, “I believe you will never have reason to doubt Quill’s motives, despite the influence of honorless Ravagers in his past.”

Bucky tucked that away for further thought later.

“And Gamora, who has overcome many years of servitude to the maniacal and merciless Thanos.”

Even more food for thought.

“Mantis, poor hideous creature, is too innocent to convince anyone of falsehoods.”

Bucky had to agree. “Why is that?”

“She was raised by Ego, a Celestial, alone and kept as a pet. It was inconceivable for her to consider lying to her master. She knows little of the world.”

“Where’s this Ego guy now?”

“Dead. We destroyed him when he attempted to use Quill, his own son, to transform the galaxy into his likeness.”

“That’s rough.”

“It was a difficult battle. We lost Yondu, Quill’s Ravager father. And Quill lost his connection to the Celestial’s immortality.”

Bucky nodded, still listening. Still purposefully assuming that the clearly circuitous route Drax had chosen was leading them away from the perimeter defenses that Rocket had set up or the hunting snares Gamora had strung. Maybe even a few natural obstacles -- pools, tangles of brush, things like that.

“Groot,” Drax continued with mission-like focus, “is a simpleton. His friends are those who show kindness. His enemies are those who cause harm.”

Bucky liked Groot. “He reminds me of what life used to be like.” When Drax sent him a look, he raised his left arm and added, “Before.”

“Before men stopped taking from you with a smile, and started forcing your compliance with threats.”

Bucky swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“It is Rocket who most baffles me,” Drax said suddenly, doggedly moving on to the next and likely last point in his lecture. “I expected him to insult and provoke you.”

“Because of my arm?” Gamora had told Bucky something along those lines.

“No,” Drax surprised him by saying, “because that is what Rocket does to everyone. He is petty and mean in his unhappiness. But he is kind to you.”

“Well,” Bucky drawled, “maybe something about me makes him less unhappy.” Seemed simple enough. So simple and straightforward that it stopped Drax in his tracks.

“Yes. Yes,” Drax repeated with doubled confidence. “Rocket likes you. He likes liking you. That is why you can trust him. Which means you can trust all of us.”

“I do.”

“Then let us proceed.” Drax gestured to a break in the trees up ahead. “We are nearly there.”

Bucky focused on the destination -- the fight -- ahead. Took a deep breath--

**_**“Longing…”** _ **

Bucky froze. A man’s voice. The familiar sound and cadence of that first Russian word pushed into his mind.

**_**“Rusted…”** _ **

“No,” he gasped, coming to his senses as the pressure inside his skull began to build. He tried to run. Couldn’t--

**_**“Seventeen…”** _ **

His feet were stuck, tangled. Groot. Groot was rooting him to the ground. “NO!” Bucky lashed out--

**_**“Daybreak…”** _ **

Thick branches wound around him, holding him fast. Bucky’s lip trembled as helplessness overwhelmed panic. “Stop...”

**_**“Furnace…”** _ **

He struggled, scraped skin and snagged cloth on Groot’s rough bark. Strained for the barest inch of leverage as he felt himself thin and stretch, a familiar chill seeping through the very fiber of his being--

**_**“Nine…”** _ **

Blood roared in his ears. Bright light. Searing pain. Screaming--

**_**“Benign…”** _ **

Dizziness. More and more with every frantic breath. His mind emptying--

**_**“Homecoming…”** _ **

Free fall. Terror. The nothingness of the abyss.

**_**“One…”** _ **

Something up ahead in the darkness. A shape, a surface--

**_**“Freight car.”** _ **

Solid ground beneath his feet. Silence. Stillness.

He breathed.

He lifted his chin.

Opened his eyes.

**_**“Ready to comply.”** _ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “soldier” versus “warrior” -- I really appreciated this distinction in Decepticonsensual’s fic “A Fool Unto Me” and hoped I could, I dunno, pimp the fact that they are different?? Here, Bucky focuses on how soldiers and warriors relate to opponents. But there are lots of others (like the fact that soldiers follow orders where warriors tend to swear allegiances as motivation permits, perhaps).
> 
> “a weapon in his hands” -- just in case it’s not clear, Bucky is referring to the fact that he was a sniper before Hydra turned him into the Winter Soldier. Bucky’s from a generation of American men, most of whom (I imagine) would not balk at the idea of having a gun in their hands, so this is part of Bucky’s “normal.” Plus, there’s the whole “taking control of one’s destiny” element, which would also speak to him.


	7. Chapter 7

Pain. A deep, throbbing that pounded at Bucky’s skull from the inside.

What had he done? Oh, God, what had he done?

He opened his eyes and blinked up at the sky. It was late afternoon and he was lying in a field of grass. His knuckles hurt, skinned and stinging in the breeze.

Motionless, he searched his memory. Snatches of voices swooped past like seagulls:

“Hold him, Groot!” Quill.

“You will follow orders!” Gamora.

“There is too much pain!” Mantis.

“No, you will fight me!” Drax.

“I got ‘im!” Rocket.

“OK, OK. Put him under. Put him under!” Quill.

“Make him sleep! NOW!” Gamora.

A desperate wail: “SLEEP!”

And then… nothing. Bucky sighed.

“Welcome back.”

Carefully, he turned his head and looked at Gamora, staring just long enough to be sure that he wasn’t hallucinating. Nor was he driven to attack. He wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore. He was just… tired.

Maybe more so than Gamora. She was sitting an arm’s length away, one arm propped up on her knee, smiling through the bruises on her cheek and jaw. A familiar handprint had already darkened her neck.

_Damn it._

“That went well,” Bucky mumbled.

“We weren’t as ready as we thought we were.”

“Oh?”

“Quill tried to give you commands in Russian. He botched it.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

She shrugged one shoulder on a hum. “His heart’s in the right place. But he’s only human.”

“Yeah,” Bucky commiserated. “I know the club. Used to be a member.”

A green hand grasped his shoulder. “Mantis got a baseline. We just didn’t know how to bring you back after that.”

“Mission report,” Bucky suggested on an exhale. “I remember being asked for mission reports. Russian, English, doesn’t matter. Maybe that’ll do it.”

“Next time,” Gamora agreed, giving his shoulder a pat. “Can you stand?”

“Not sure if I should.” Or if he wanted to. Because then he’d have to face the music. He’d have to look into Mantis’ eyes and he’d see all the pain and horror that he tried so hard to deny. He’d have to wade through the disappointment that Quill would be smothering with cheerful determination. He’d have to return Groot’s gentle smile because that idiot tree really believed that everything was OK when it really, really wasn’t. He’d have to grin and bear it through Drax’s hearty congratulations on a battle well-fought. And Rocket…

“Who did I hurt?” Bucky asked, as belated fear sparked to life. Fear that his friends weren’t as indestructible as he’d thought. “Besides you, obviously.”

“This? This is nothing,” she insisted. “It’ll be healed up by bedtime.”

“Drax?”

“A little sore, but fine.”

“I didn’t hurt--”

“Everyone is fine.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You got the worst of it. We ended up luring you within range of an anti-grav mine. Rocket had to bounce you half a dozen times before Mantis could get an opening.”

Bucky growled. “Someone should be working with her on evasive maneuvers. This is stupid.”

“This,” Gamora replied, “is a learning experience. For all of us. It’ll be OK.”

She stood up and offered her hand to Bucky. With only a brief hesitation, he took it and levered himself upright. Groot was standing by, missing an arm that was already starting to grow back.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Bucky told him.

Groot shrugged and then Mantis peeked out from around his bulk.

“Are you OK?” Bucky asked her, fearing the worst.

She nodded. “I am glad you do not suffer those feelings all the time.”

He winced. “I wish you could forget ‘em, like I can.”

“I do not. These emotions will help me learn how to help you.”

Bucky’s brows shot upward. “You still want to?”

“Of course!”

He shook his head, bemused, and crossed the distance between them, offering his hand to her so that she could feel his admiration and appreciation. Respect. “Brave, ladybug,” he complimented and she practically glowed.

“Where’s Quill?” Bucky prompted, releasing Mantis’ fingers. “Drax and Rocket?”

“Quill’s getting Drax back to the ship -- don’t worry, he’s been through far worse. It looks like a sprained ankle.” She jerked her chin toward the trees bordering the meadow: “And Rocket’s cleaning up.”

Ah, so Bucky wouldn’t be coming back out this way anytime soon. It made sense. On familiar terrain, the Winter Soldier would be even more of a handful.

“What can I do?” he offered and Gamora nudged him to start walking.

“Come back to the ship and get cleaned up. Groot and Mantis can give Rocket a hand if he needs it.”

Bucky let himself be led away. “I’d ask how Drax is taking this, but I’d bet he’s composing an epic ode to commemorate the fight.”

“Luckily,” Gamora replied with a smile, “he doesn’t sing.”

Bucky laughed. “That’s really lucky.”

“But…” she continued, dragging the word out until it thinned, “you might have to suffer through a few hundred retellings.”

“Son of a bitch.”

A companionable pat to his shoulder further lifted Bucky’s spirits, giving him just enough motivation to make the trek back to the _Milano_ under his own power and point himself in the direction of the shower. Today of all days, he could probably get away with going over on his allotted ration of recycled water, but he didn’t. He washed up as fast as he could and got out.

No sooner had both feet touched the spongy floor mat than there was a soft knock on the door. Bucky quickly looked himself over in the mirror. The accelerated healing was already decreasing the swelling and turning red welts into purple bruises into sickly green splotches. Just beautiful.

He wrapped a towel around his hips.

“It’s Rocket,” came a quiet voice from the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” _Why not._ “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Bucky told him as the door inched open and Rocket stuck his head in.

Bucky watched him slink into the room and lean back against the door until it shut. Rocket didn’t say anything, so Bucky grabbed a hand towel from the linen shelf and got on with drying his hair. His back and shoulders twinged with the movement.

“See? It’s not so bad,” Bucky said into the the silence.

“Your mods help.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that because, yeah, that was true.

“I had to drop you from almost sixty feet just to daze you.”

“Sixty, huh?”

“What, you can’t count that high?”

Bucky huffed, tickled by the sarcasm. “Can’t remember it.”

“Oh, man. Quill, Drax, and Gamora had to keep you busy while I boosted the power of the anti-grav field using a frickin’ rifle charger of all things and--!” His arms flopped down at this sides. “You _missed_ it?”

“You’ll get another chance.”

Rocket crossed his arms. “Yeah,” he grumbled, his burgeoning indignation souring into grim malcontent. “I just might.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, hanging the damp hand towel around his shoulders and staring at Rocket until those brown eyes looked up at him. “You do what you gotta do. For your family.”

Rocket’s gaze slid toward the mirror and he studied the mottled skin of Bucky’s back. “Didn’t wanna do that.”

“But I’m glad you did. I don’t want to hurt people.” _I don’t do that anymore,_ he wanted to say. But it was no more true now than it had been when he’d said it to Steve. Hydra had made a liar out of him then and it might make a liar out of him now.

Rocket let out a long breath. “I know. I get it. Kind of.” He looked up again and admitted with reluctance, “There was a time, not so long ago, when I did stupid shit. Like, steal batteries I didn’t need -- just because I could. Because I was starting to feel safe and… and like I was a part of something. It wasn’t even really about pushing Quill and everyone away. It was-- I was trying to-- I dunno.”

Bucky tilted his head and waited for Rocket to go on.

“I was hurting them because I was trying to hurt myself. Because pain -- that’s what I know.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t a choice, really. I just… did it. Like a reflex, y’know? But they forgave me. They didn’t leave me behind.”

Bucky’s heart thudded in his chest.

“We ain’t leaving you behind,” Rocket promised.

Bucky nodded. He stood there blinking, pulse pounding and right hand trembling, as Rocket opened the door and left. The soft click of the latch catching was like a blade, slicing through the strings that had been keeping Bucky upright. He slumped against the counter and scrubbed his right hand over his face, smearing the tears on his skin in a cloud of steam.

He grinned through the pain. Bared his teeth and grimaced. Sobbed in a breath because--

_“Bucky! Take my hand!”_

And then the fall. The cold. The pain. The years.

Steve hadn’t meant to leave him behind, but he had.

And Bucky still couldn’t process it. Accept it. Forgive it.

But maybe -- just maybe -- this unlikely bunch of interstellar do-gooders could show him how.

He had to splash cold water on his flushed face for two solid minutes before he figured he was ready to deal with whoever he might bump into next because, as thankful as he was for his thickening beard, there was no way it could hide reddened, puffy eyes.

Filling his lungs with a fortifying breath, Bucky yanked the door open and stepped into the corridor. It was empty. His shoulders sagged with relief and disappointment. He didn’t pause to reflect on it; he’d already used up his daily dose of uncomfortable truths. And then some.

When he stomped into the galley, making more than enough noise for them to hear him coming, he found Drax lounging at the table with an ice pack of some kind on his left ankle, laughing at whatever Rocket was gleefully gesticulating.

Gamora staunchly defended, “I did not ‘windmill.’”

“Yes, you did!” Rocket insisted and Quill smirked.

“Pretty as a picture on a Holland postcard.”

Mantis smiled encouragingly. “I was most impressed with your flailing.”

Gamora bared her teeth, and Quill giggled. Rocket tucked his chin against his chest, hissing with laughter. Drax boomed another chortle up at the ceiling while Groot very helpfully provided a wide-eyed reenactment of the blunder in question.

Bucky let his own smile out before quickly tucking it away. “You jackasses can talk! How many of you volunteered to fill me in when I came to?”

“Hey!” Rocket barked, truly offended. Or trying very hard to look it. Groot just looked guilty as hell.

Bucky gestured for Gamora’s hand and placed a gallant kiss on the back of it. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

She arched a brow. “I couldn’t let you wake up to Quill’s face. I’m not cruel.”

“Hey!” Quill bleated. “Be nice to me.”

“Why?” Gamora asked, hands on her hips.

“Because you like me.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Yes. You do. It’s in there.” Quill gestured aimlessly toward her bodice. “Deep, deep down.”

“Where _you’ll_ never find anything.”

“You’re so mean. It’s really very, very unattractive. Just, so mean.” But he was smiling.

Bucky glanced over at Rocket who forlornly shook his head. And when Drax loudly commanded Bucky to sit, Bucky did, letting his momentum carry him over into Rocket’s space so that their arms bumped. Warm, soft fur against battered, bare skin in the midst of friendly jests and laughter. And Bucky felt something that he hadn’t felt for a long, long time: a faint echo of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “anti-grav mine” -- Rocket uses one or two of these to bounce Yondu’s men in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 when they approach the Milano (after it crashed on Berhert) at night
> 
> “ladybug” -- I don’t know if this is meant to be a derogatory term in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or whatnot. I did see it on Marvel Wiki listed under Mantis’ aliases, but I honestly don’t remember hearing it used in the first two Guardians movies. Anyway, Bucky doesn’t mean it to be insulting and Mantis hasn’t been called this by anyone before Bucky (as per my headcanon), but I can imagine that it IS an insult on Mantis’ home world. If their adventures ever take them there, perhaps we’ll find out. (^_~)
> 
> “steal batteries I didn’t need” / “But they forgave me” -- this is honestly my favorite character arc of the GotG movie series thus far


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The English translation of Russian words is shown in bold, italicized text.

“If I’m still here, then I’m still good to go,” Bucky told everyone at the conclusion of their next meal, answering the edgy silence that Quill usually filled with a short pep talk outlining the following day’s tasks.

Bucky cleared his throat. “So, yeah. I want to keep trying. If you’re all OK with that.”

Rocket let out an exasperated noise. “C’mere. Just…”

Answering Rocket’s crooked finger, Bucky leaned closer. Close enough for Rocket to smack his palm against Bucky’s temple.

“Don’t be an idiot. We already got one of those. Right there.” He pointed at Quill, who glowered back.

“The next time you sleep, raccoon.”

“Hey. Drax owes me a turd. Don’t make me use it.”

Mantis made a face. “How would you use one of those?”

“Oh, they make great pillow-stuffers,” Rocket informed her and then glared Quill’s way, “for mortal enemies.”

He smirked. “I’m your nemesis -- admit it!”

“Hah! You wish you were that important.”

Quill chanted: “Nemesis! Nemesis!”

“Idiot! Idiot!” Rocket shot back.

“And this is when they pee for distance,” Gamora grumbled.

Mantis fluttered her hands. “Not inside the ship, please!”

Bucky snorted. “Drax, you up for being the line judge?”

“You do not claim the privilege?”

“Uh, no,” Bucky declined.

Rocket accused, “Taking Gamora’s side. She lives to suck the joy out of everything.”

Groot stood up. He grinned at Quill and Rocket in turns.

Rocket laughed and Quill squeaked, “What!? No! That would be totally biased. Mantis should do it, except… that I just emptied the tank.”

Rocket tapped his claws against the table, unimpressed. “A likely excuse. Wuss.”

Quill reared back and pointed a finger at his accuser. “Next shore leave. Midnight. It is on, buster.”

Rocket smirked. “Yeah, and I’ll ‘bust’ you.”

Tilting his head toward Drax, Bucky remarked, “Looks like the fun and games aren’t happening tonight.”

“In that case, I will seek slumber.”

Bucky offered to give him a hand down to his room and Drax accepted, using the opportunity to congratulate Bucky on his fine efforts that afternoon near and, eventually, in the meadow. Bucky endured the retelling from start to finish before firmly wishing Drax a good night.

Mantis squeezed around Bucky and ducked into her room. Gamora headed into the shower, giving him a brief smile in passing. There were already clangs and clatters and soft curses coming from Rocket’s room. Bucky’s earlier exhaustion had deserted him at some point so, riding his second wind, he headed back to the galley. The hull hatch was open and Groot was outside, slowly creaking through what looked like yoga in the moonlight.

Bucky found Quill in the cockpit, scanning the Nova news feed. He eased into the navigator’s chair and called up some star charts, idly plotting a route to Earth.

“I should warn you,” Quill said quietly and, when Bucky looked up, he saw that the man was still diligently staring at the screen. “Gamora’s spent her whole life with this…” He gesticulated. “--wall around her. So, y’know, it’s probably not gonna happen. FYI.”

Bucky’s fingers froze over the monitor. “What?”

Sighing, Quill wiggled around. Speaking over the shoulder of the pilot’s seat, he said, “Yeah, maybe she likes you. But don’t fool yourself into thinking it’ll ever be more than that.”

“Not a problem,” Bucky shot back, pride stinging.

“She doesn’t do casual, either--”

“Can you just stop talking?” Bucky asked almost conversationally, focusing his attention back to the navigation console.

Quill was silent for all of three seconds before he blurted, “Look, it’s not that I don’t think you’d be good for each other. You’ve got the whole engineered assassin thing in common, maybe more--”

“I’m not interested.”

“Not… interested… in _Gamora?_ Wait, wait.” The pilot’s chair squeaked in protest as Quill wedged himself sideways in it. “Wait. How can you _not_ be interested in Gamora? You’re breathing, aren’t you?”

“Last I checked.”

“Oh. _Oh._ OK. Huh.”

Bucky’s glare slid in Quill’s direction and his eyes narrowed at Quill’s smug grin.

“I’m flattered. Really. This is--wow. But, dude. That’s _definitely_ not going to happen. I am _really_ sorry.”

Shaking his head, Bucky lifted both palms in a show of bafflement. It was Quill’s self-depreciating smile that clued him in.

“Hell, no,” Bucky told him, lip curling at the thought.

“What? Man, don’t sneer. That’s just uncool.”

Bucky didn’t particularly care. He gave Quill a warning look and turned back to the star chart, took a deep breath, selected a new route and tapped the nearest jump point--

“Mantis?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Bucky gritted out, fisting both hands to keep himself from twisting Quill’s head off of his neck. “I have no interest in Gamora or Mantis or Drax or Groot or _you.”_

Case closed.

Quill leaned back, a dazed look on his face. “Whoa. Seriously?”

Bucky huffed. “What?”

“What?? _Rocket,_ that’s what. What the hell. Seriously?”

Bucky blinked and… shit. He had left Rocket’s name off the list. And it was too late to claim that Rocket wasn’t even in the running because Bucky had listed Groot, hadn’t he? The unlikeliest candidate of all.

“I can’t--just--” Quill gave himself a shake. “My brain is exploding right now.”

Bucky flopped back in his seat and stared up through the transparent casing of the cockpit.

“Would that even be possible? I mean, he’s a _raccoon.”_

“You need to shut up,” Bucky mumbled.

“No, no, no. I need to figure this out because holy--he’s a--”

“He’s a survivor,” Bucky interrupted. “And he’s my friend. End of story. Mind your own business, Quill.”

The line was drawn. It vibrated in the air for a moment, and then the man did as he was asked and shut his mouth with a _click!_ Quill straightened back around.

Bucky was halfway through a new course to a familiar-sounding planet (Krylor) that he’d found in the ship’s log of recent destinations, when Quill suddenly yelped. “Nope! Can’t do it. I mean, I’m seeing fractions here, man--”

“You’re going to be seeing stars if you don’t let it go.”

“This your thing, though? The fur and--”

Bucky gave up. He turned off the navigation console and stood. “There is no ‘thing,’” he grunted out in passing, ducking below deck for a little peace and quiet. He found neither in his bunk.

Through the wall, he could hear the grit and stutter of tools. A song was playing and Rocket was humming along to a chorus, words that sounded like “southern nights.” One of the few songs that Rocket had admitted to enjoying. And as tempting as it was to go next door and knock, Bucky didn’t. Not that the distraction wouldn’t be nice, but Rocket had things to do. It wasn’t his job to entertain Bucky. To distract him from his demons.

It occurred to him too late that he hadn’t even used Rocket’s diminutive size as a reason for leaving him off The List. Yes, Rocket was small, but he was larger than life.

The real reason he’d been left off The List was simple and damning: Rocket was the one person Bucky hadn’t injured (like Gamora, Drax, Mantis, Groot, and -- hell -- Steve) or hadn’t seen injured (like Quill). And Bucky wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand it if that changed.

_Shit._

Bucky stared at the ceiling for a long time, listening to that perky folk song filter through the wall on repeat and the low voice that absently duh-duh-duhed through the lyrics to a counterpoint of fizzling sparks and grinding motors. But, eventually, Bucky did sleep.

Sunrise was like a hero riding into town on a pure white horse. The nightmare was over. A new day had arrived.

If Quill happened to look at him funny whenever Bucky was in close proximity to Rocket, so what? Bucky couldn’t control what Peter Quill thought. Hell, Bucky couldn’t even control his own mind. A fact that became increasingly obvious as the day’s outdoor “therapy” progressed.

This time, it was Gamora who took on the task of speaking the words. She stood just a few feet away, waiting for the go-ahead. Groot wrapped up Bucky’s arms tightly behind his back, and Mantis had already placed her hand on his right arm, eyes closed. The tips of her antennae glowing as she concentrated.

**_**“Longing…”** _ **

Bucky tensed.

“Breathe,” Mantis coached.

He pulled air into his lungs like he would never be given another chance.

Gamora continued: **_**“Rusted…”**_**

A wave of soothing warmth rushed over Bucky’s entire body. Or so it seemed. His belly churned. His head swam.

**_**“Seventeen…”** _ **

_No. No, no, no!_

“You are safe, Bucky. We are your friends and you are safe now.”

He pulled at the rough bindings on his arms, waves of panic crashing into a rolling fog of serenity. Nauseous, he panted hard. Tried to spit out the excess juices from his mouth.

**_**“Daybreak…”** _ **

Warmth and safety, soothing calm. Retina-burning light and ice in his veins.

He screamed, throat shredding from the inside.

“This isn’t working,” Gamora bit out softly.

“I know,” Mantis confessed, “but I do not know what else to do.”

“Just give him a minute. Stop whatever it is you’re doing.”

And suddenly Bucky could breathe again. The contents of his stomach settled. His mind cleared. And yet. He felt like a toy that was missing most of its parts.

He shuddered. Shivers wracked his body. Agony flared across his brow. Groot’s branches kept him from collapsing.

Mantis whimpered.

Gamora asked Mantis, “Is the pain too much?”

“So much,” she rasped, “pain!”

“It’s not real. Tell Bucky that the pain is not real.”

Reassurance wrapped him up in its embrace. Like a blanket… that morphed into a python that squeezed the air out of him and then started churning like the blades of a meat grinder--he couldn’t breathe-- _couldn’t breathe--COULDN’T BREATHE!!_

“Sleep, Bucky. Sleep…”

Darkness.

And then, light. Sunlight gradually turned the insides of his eyelids bright orange. A dry-skinned hand, small and rough, smoothed over his brow. There was a brief, feather-light scratch of a claw at his hairline.

“Well that was a rousing success!” Rocket hissed at some unfortunate target and Bucky relaxed into the slow passes of that single paw. “What the hell did you do to him? Get lost. All of you.”

Bucky tuned out the terse murmurings and soaked up the feel of cool, damp moss under him. He smiled into the occasional brush of soft fur against his cheek. The paw stroking his brow was erasing the lingering headache bit by tiny bit. This right here was all Bucky wanted out of life.

“I know you’re awake,” Rocket accused some minutes after three sets of footsteps -- Gamora’s, Mantis’, and Groot’s -- had retreated.

Bucky hummed.

“C’mon. Show me those bright eyes, cutie.”

Bucky snorted but obliged.

“Yeah, there they are.” Rocket smiled for him, which made Bucky not care that he was lying flat on his back in the middle of an alien forest. But then Rocket’s brows beetled and that smile turned into a snarl. “What did those idiots try to do to you?”

Bucky shook his head and rolled up onto his right elbow. Belatedly, he recalled the nausea and glanced down. Seeing his splatter-free shirt was a relief. “Whatever it was, I don’t think we should be trying it again.”

“Agreed.” Rocket hesitated. “Mind if I give it a shot?”

“If you think you--” Bucky bit back the rest. Because Rocket would tear him a new one if Bucky so much as suggested that Rocket couldn’t handle himself.

Into the lengthening quiet, Rocket nudged, “If I think I…?”

Bucky gave in. “If you’ve got an idea, sure. Yeah, let’s do it.”

“OK. OK. I gotta round everybody up.”

Bucky didn’t ask why Rocket had ordered them to take off in the first place. He didn’t want to know.

Rocket disappeared into the forest and Bucky paced the immediate area, clearing his head, feeling himself settle back into place. Like square wooden blocks tripping and tumbling against round holes. Ill-fitting, but better than having his shit scattered all over the place.

Groot returned first and Bucky tried to ignore the possibility that Rocket was further interrogating Gamora and Mantis elsewhere.

“Heya, Groot. You still got all your twigs?”

He nodded… and that was it for that conversational gambit.

Bucky burrowed his hand through his hair and tried not to get all worked up over his imminent submersion in Hydra’s programming. For the second time today.

He was still trying -- and mostly failing -- to maintain an even keel when Rocket returned. Gamora and Mantis were, presumably, keeping their distance.

“New plan,” Rocket began. He crossed his arms and cocked one hip, as cool as could be. “We’re trying this again. Without the fluff this time.”

“Fluff?” Bucky checked.

“Yeah. Fluff. We’re not dealing with farts and rain clouds, here. It’s time to get serious.”

Bucky straightened. “Tell me what to do.”

“Setting aside that that’s the crux of the problem,” Rocket shrewdly assessed, “I’m gonna have you stand here -- Groot, bind him up again, not too tight, not too tight! -- and listen to what I have to say. Answer my questions. We’re gonna let Mantis help if and only if you need it. Got it?”

“OK,” Bucky said and hoped like hell that it really would be.

“Gamora, let ‘em rip! This is take two!”

There was a pause and then, unseen from the shelter of the trees came the first word:

**_**“Longing…”** _ **

Bucky drew in a breath and tried not to fight it. Rocket was here and Groot had his back and, damn it, they could do this.

**_**“Rusted…”** _ **

They could do this. They could do this. They could--

**_**“Seventeen…”** _ **

A slow rumble over his shoulder. Groot. Groot was not going to let Bucky hurt anyone.

**_**“Daybreak…”** _ **

The tension was rising now, pressing in on Bucky’s veins--

**_**“Furnace…”** _ **

\--squeezing his brain. “No. No, no, no.” He was losing it. Fading. Pain overwhelming--

**_**“Nine…”** _ **

A paw on his knee, claws that he could feel through the weave of his trousers. “We’ve got this, Bucky.”

**_**“Benign…”** _ **

“...hurts.”

“I know.”

Between gasps, Bucky tried to explain. The pain… He couldn’t. He just couldn’t-- _the PAIN!_

“It’s real. The pain is real,” Rocket told him calmly, “and it’s yours, Bucky. Use it.”

**_**“Homecoming…”** _ **

Cold. So cold. Shivering. Frigid. Icy and charged and crackling with electricity--

“Imagine the pain as a lake. A winter lake. And you’re rising up out of it. You’re safe.”

**_**“One…”** _ **

“The pain is below you now. See it? You’re above it and you can use it, Bucky. Reach in and take hold and pull out the biggest frickin’ laser cannon in the universe.”

**_**“Freight car.”** _ **

“Bucky?”

Booming breaths and trembling hands. Agony and _power terrible strength--_

“Bucky, can you hear me? You know who this is, right? It’s Rocket.”

His chest (heaving) and breaths (burning his throat) and the cold weight of death and destiny thrumming in his hands--

“Bucky,” Rocket whined brokenly. “C’mon, man. It’s me and Groot here. It’s OK…”

Bucky flexed his right arm, his shoulders, his spine. He rolled his head on his neck, felt the pop of a single vertebra, and blinked his eyes open.

“It’s OK,” Rocket told him, apprehension evaporating as fiery determination took its place. “You are OK. We’re here with you and you are OK!”

Bucky nodded. It hurt and his body felt heavy, stiff and unresponsive, but he was looking out through the Winter Soldier’s eyes and he was aware of his limbs and lungs and blood in a way that felt real. It felt connected. He was present in mind and body.

“Yeah,” he grated out, his voice sounding like it was echoing out of the pits of Hell. “I hear you, Rocket.”

Rocket’s brows -- the fur a much lighter shade of brown than that on the rest of his face -- scrunched and pulled together. Fierce with hope. “Good. Now you listen. This strength is yours. No one but you chooses what to do with it. Repeat what I just said.”

“This is my strength,” he murmured.

“Say like you mean it, damn it!”

“This is my strength!” he hollered. “I decide how I use it!”

Claws curled tighter against his knee. “And what’s your name? Who are you? Who decides?”

“My name is Bucky. My name is Bucky, and I choose!”

“Yes. You most definitely do.” Rocket drew in a breath. “Now, who do you see -- who’s with you?”

“Rocket. And Groot.” Bucky angled his chin down and scanned their surroundings. “Gamora and Mantis are near.”

“That’s right.”

Bucky’s right hand tightened, ropes of muscle bulging along his arm.

Groot emitted a worried hum.

“Bucky,” Rocket said firmly, “what do you want to do next?”

“I want…” he parroted, uncertain of what words _ought_ to come next. This was not part of his programming. This was not a prompt he was familiar with, so he didn’t know how to answer, what to answer. The words were more than just absent -- his mind was empty of them.

“Mantis is going to help you figure out what you want. OK?”

Bucky nodded jerkily and Rocket gestured for someone beyond his field of vision to approach. A short moment later, he saw her. Mantis. Her shoulders were hunched and her antennae drooped, non-threatening.

“Hello, Bucky. May I touch your forehead?”

He managed another stiff nod.

Her hand pressed to his bare skin and her brows furrowed in concentration. The whirlwind that was sandblasting him just about lifted her off her feet. It stole her breath, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t back away. Voice thin, she rasped, “You are confused. Lost. Afraid. You are searching, grasping--” She gasped hard. “This. Is this what you are looking for?”

He groped through the chaos, digging in his heels as an idea surged forth. A simple idea. So simple and sharp that it speared through the storm: _no._

“No,” Bucky repeated, clinging to the word that had eluded him for so long, through so much death and destruction. “No, I won’t. I won’t. Stop,” he recited softly. He opened his eyes. “I want to stop.”

Mantis nodded. “If you want to stop, you can stop. You _can.”_

“I can. I am.” Bucky nodded, breathed, declared, “I’m done.”

And relaxed. The tension, the pain, the horror, the denial, the refusal, all of it just vanished. Along with everything else.

His knees sagged and, suddenly, despite Groot’s solid presence at his back, Bucky was falling through eternity. His eyes rolled up in his head and Rocket’s voice was shouting his name as long, sturdy boughs caged him in leafy arms.

“Bucky! You’re OK! We’ve got you, pal. We’ve got you--”

This time, the darkness didn’t seem so bad. This time, Bucky welcomed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “seeing fractions” -- this is NOT my own original line. A good AiW fandom friend left a comment for me (many moons ago) and used this line with regards to a Chessur/Jabberwocky pairing, and she was very relieved to see that I went an asexual route with their relationship.
> 
> This line: “Rocket was the one person Bucky hadn’t injured (like Gamora, Drax, Mantis, Groot, and -- hell -- Steve) or hadn’t seen injured (like Quill). And Bucky wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand it if that changed.” Bucky is just now realizing that Rocket has become a kind of anchor for him, and Bucky is trying not to freak out because his anchors tend to get ripped away from him. (Regarding how Mantis was hurt -- Bucky knows that she experiences a lot of emotional pain when she uses her empathic abilities on him.)
> 
> And my conscience urges me to add a disclaimer: I know nothing about how to undo brainwashing, neutalize behavioral conditioning, or minimize the symptoms of and suffering from PTSD. This fic is pure, self-indulgent fluff. And, in fictionland, serious problems can be addressed and managed (and possibly solved) on faith, determination, effort, and (only a little bit of) time. What can I say -- I'm an idealist.


	9. Chapter 9

Someone was in his bed with him and it was wonderful. The subtle vibration, pulse, energy of a living body so close by. A reassuring presence he could feel even in the absence of physical contact.

But then, he panicked. Because Bucky could not, for the life of him, remember her name.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit._

“Wakey-wakey, cutie.”

Bucky squinted. Dawn was seeping in through the porthole, a liquid glow tumbling inside and pooling in every corner, and Rocket was perched on the stool beside Bucky’s bunk (rather than in it), leaning back against the wall that served as a headboard.

He melted back into the mattress. “Been here long?” Bucky asked, scrubbing the sleep from one itchy eye.

“Eh. Only all night. Man, when you go down, you go down hard. Even Quill’s starting to get worried.”

“Quill?”

“Poked his head in a while ago. I told him to buzz off.”

“Good.” Bucky resettled himself on his backpack pillow and frowned. “You sleep at all?”

“Where would I have done that? On my comfy throne here?”

“Idiot. C’mere.” Bucky scooched over, making room.

“Uh… you sure?”

“What are you, allergic to ‘humies’ now? Ain’t gonna bite.”

Moving with glacial slowness, Rocket slid onto the mattress and curled up in the warm spot Bucky had just vacated. He plopped his head on the corner of Bucky’s makeshift pillow and winced. “This thing sucks.”

“Works for me.”

A small fist pounded at the bag’s piping. “What do you got against actual pillows, man?”

“Too soft. Marshmallows.”

“Marshmamoos,” Rocket grumbled. “I can’t sleep on this thing.”

“Oh, shut up,” Bucky groused, smoothly sliding his left arm under Rocket’s skull. “That better?”

“Actually, yeah. Not sure you should be smiling about it, though. You’ve got an arm that doubles as a pillow. Kind of emasculating.”

“I’ll be offended later,” Bucky murmured as sleep beckoned.

Some dreamy, slow-and-drifting time later, Bucky opened his eyes to the soft click of his door shutting. Someone had been looking in on him. That was kind of unsettling, but… nice.

What was even nicer was the warm body pressed against his side, the soft fur and slight twitch of Rocket’s leg against Bucky’s thigh. The claws of one front paw had caught in the weave of Bucky’s shirt at some point and it didn’t matter that Bucky’s bladder was trying to nudge his guts to move over and make room. Bucky was transfixed by the angry scowl on Rocket’s sleeping face. As if slumber were a detestable inconvenience.

For some, maybe. Bucky wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that sleep was an irritating necessity that interrupted Rocket’s genius.

And he was. Pure genius. Bucky’s most recent battle against Hydra’s programming came to mind and… wow. Now that was progress. A single step that had the potential to turn into more.

Little wonder that Bucky was intrigued by his slumbering bed mate. Careful not to shift his weight, he arched his right arm over and gently massaged the scrunched skin between Rocket’s eyes. His expression relaxed a bit, but not much. The ears, then, he decided, remembering how stray cats and dogs in his old neighborhood had loved a little attention there. He rubbed gently at the base of Rocket’s fuzzy ear and, wouldn’t you know it, Rocket let loose a long sigh. Almost a whimper.

_Damned adorable._

Idly brushing his thumb along the edge of that scoop-shaped ear, Bucky marveled at his own survival the day before. He’d made it through without drowning in Hydra. He’d beaten them at their own game. Now that was a win. And it felt incredible. Bucky felt incredible. Rested and confident and ready for anything.

Until a grumble startled him:

“Don’t do that,” Rocket reprimanded on a groan.

Bucky’s fingers snapped away, his hand still hovering while he debated lying flat on his back again. His bladder surely wouldn’t thank him for it. “Sorry.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Rocket muttered. “Don’t do that unless you’re planning on doing nothing but that for the next day and a half or so.”

Bucky chuckled. “Would that I could?”

Rocket nuzzled against his ribs, tickling him, and grinned when Bucky flinched. Rocket settled down and Bucky loathed the thought of disturbing him, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Hey.” He trailed his fingers along the back of Rocket’s skull. God, that fur was so soft it was unreal. “Thanks.”

“What’d I do?”

“You stayed.”

Rocket grunted. “Someone had to.” Opening one eye, he peered at Bucky over the edge of Bucky’s chest and Bucky absently cataloged the smushed fur on one side of Rocket’s face. His head would have cast a shadow like a claw hammer.

He told Bucky, “It’s official: you did it. Yesterday. You didn’t imagine it.”

And Bucky might have convinced himself that it hadn’t been real if he’d woken up alone after another restless night of too-light sleep, poised on a hair trigger, waiting for the shadows to leap at him. It was how he’d slept nearly every night since he’d done the inconceivable and _not_ returned to Hydra’s clutches after he’d botched his mission to eliminate Captain America or, at the very least, prevent him from interfering with the launch of Project Insight’s helicarriers.

Bucky’s stomach rumbled and Rocket snorted. “Question: if you leave, do I gotta move?”

“Nope. Stay as long as you want.”

“You’re gonna live to regret that,” Rocket warned as Bucky sat up and tried not to smile too audibly at the sight of Rocket tugging the backpack close, nudging his nose into a fold.

Bucky ducked into the empty corridor and wasted no time getting to the bathroom. The corridor wasn’t empty by the time he came out, however. Face washed, teeth brushed, hair combed, and generally doing a passable impersonation of a functioning human being, Bucky drew up at the sight of Groot looming between him and the ladder.

“Hey, man. Thank you for what you did yesterday.”

Groot nodded once and then looked past Bucky’s shoulder to Bucky’s closed door, on the other side of which Rocket was probably still curled around his pillow substitute.

“I,” the bipedal vegetation said with patience and understanding and no small amount of quiet joy, “am Groot.”

Bucky stared. Every response that came to him -- “Thank you” and “I have his back” and “I don’t know where this is going, but I hope it’s somewhere good” -- all seemed to miss Groot’s point. Miss it by a mile. In the end, Bucky didn’t say anything. He patted Groot’s arm and then Groot led the way to the galley.

Mantis and Drax looked up when they came in.

“You do not hibernate after all!” Drax remarked.

“I hope you didn’t lose a bet over it,” Bucky replied, thumping the man’s shoulder in passing.

Mantis beamed. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine. You did good yesterday, ladybug.” He paused, leaned down, and quickly squeezed her fingers atop the table.

When he looked up, he found himself on the receiving end of Gamora’s smile -- it was oddly speculative. Bucky thanked her, too, and she shook her hair back over her shoulder.

“We made you a promise,” she deflected.

Quill clamored out of the cockpit, elbows propped up in the archway. “How’s it feel to stand in the light at the end of the tunnel?”

“It was only one time,” Bucky warned.

Quill shrugged. “The path has been forged.” He put on a show of glancing around. “What’s Rocket up to?”

Bucky shrugged. “Sleeping, I imagine.”

Bucky refused to mention the fact that Rocket had stayed with him the whole night and was currently snoozing on Bucky’s bunk. That seemed like the kind of bomb that could blast the _Milano_ into its fourth incarnation. Although, at least one person in this room had seen precisely that with their own eyes. And he could make a guess as to who that person was. Whether or not she would say anything about it, Bucky was unsure.

“Don’t,” he added sharply in response to the gleeful grin on Quill’s face, “wake him up.”

“I am Groot.”

Gamora frowned. “What do you mean he hasn’t been sleeping lately?”

Bucky looked at Groot, who declined to comment further, and heard himself say, “I can hear him working in his room whenever I turn in. Just about every night.”

Quill chuckled like Bucky had just told a good joke. Gamora huffed. Mantis grinned and Groot playfully nudged Bucky’s shoulder and yeah, like that cleared anything up at all. At least Drax looked equally flummoxed.

The tension in the room lingered until Drax pushed himself up from the table, showed off his healed ankle, and urged Bucky into a rematch outdoors. Bucky couldn’t accept fast enough.

And, in the process, he realized that something had carried over from the day before when he’d merged with the Winter Soldier: he was focused. Self-aware _and_ focused. He’d always seesawed between the two. In Bucharest, he hadn’t wanted to kill any of the tactical officers who’d stormed his apartment building but, if not for Steve, he would have. Definitely. Because as Bucky’s focus sharpened, his humanity blurred and his awareness pared down to raw sensory perception where people became mere obstacles to be eliminated.

Not so today.

He beat Drax, three out of five, and then it was time to clean up and get some food on the table for everyone.

Gamora scooted up next to him at the food prep counter and nudged a canister of salt in his direction with a pointed look at the roots he was attempting to boil. Berhert had yielded quite a few edibles and Bucky was a total failure at cooking all of them, so any offer of help was welcome. Hell, it was self-preservation on the part of the volunteer.

“Everything OK?” Gamora asked lightly. No one else was in the room, but still, Bucky appreciated the low-key approach to personal questions.

“So far so good.”

“With Rocket, too?”

_Oh, hell._

Well, at least he had confirmation that it really had been Gamora who’d looked in on him earlier and woken him up. As he’d thought.

She leaned a hip against the counter. “How long has that been going on?”

“It’s not.”

“But you do not feel as alone as you once did.”

Bucky couldn’t argue with that.

“And I don’t think Rocket does, either.”

He frowned; this little chat was not taking the same direction as the one Quill had forced on him.

“But you should brace yourself. Rocket doesn’t like needing people. Friends.” She smiled wryly. “Even us. And he has very sharp teeth.”

“Lemme guess, you’ve got a bet going with Quill.”

“Quill is very protective of his friends.”

And Bucky figured that -- as the newest team member -- he was the one shit outta luck. “Rocket deserves that kind of loyalty.”

Gamora reached over and gave Bucky’s right arm a squeeze. She emphasized, “All of his friends do.”

Speechless, Bucky turned back to the spice containers he was rattling through. He cleared his throat, but still nothing came out.

“And,” she continued, “although I can’t speak for Quill, I think what you and Rocket have -- whatever it is -- is wonderful.”

Bucky yanked open a drawer and fumbled for a teaspoon. “Quill’s opinion is easy enough to figure out. His mind goes straight to the gutter.”

“It does.” She calmly assessed, “We are all the results of our upbringing. Unless we make efforts to the contrary.”

Bucky set down the spatula he’d just picked up and asked, “What Rocket said, y’know, earlier out there. Would that have helped you?”

“It might have. But I went a different route. I buried the fear. Ignored the pain. It was easier to tell myself it was only a bad dream.”

“Huh,” Bucky said, understanding coming to him in a moment of almost blinding clarity. “So that’s why you and Quill don’t…” he shrugged meaningfully, “even though you kind of are. You’re rushing toward the future while he’s enjoying the present.” She stiffened, her hand curling around the edge of the counter. Bucky offered an olive branch, a conclusion: “Rocket and I are stuck in the past. I wouldn’t say that’s ‘wonderful,’ but it’s nice to have company.”

And there Bucky’s thoughts stopped. It was where they had to stop. Because facing down and powering through his conditioning one time was not a cure. There would never be a cure.

There would always be a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “marshmallows” (Captain America: Winter Soldier). Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers talk about how normal bed mattresses are too soft -- like marshmallows.
> 
> “her name” -- this hints at my headcanon for pre-mindwiped Bucky. I got the sense from the movies that young Bucky strongly identified with the heteronormative life goals of his generation, so his knee-jerk response to feeling safe and sensing someone in or very near his bed is to assume that he is with a woman. More importantly, Bucky is starting to subconsciously trust his surroundings and his sense of self is starting to assert itself even when he isn’t fully conscious. (Bucky’s feelings for Rocket are too recent to have been internalized yet.)
> 
> touching without permission -- I get that this is not OK. Bucky should have asked Rocket before he started massaging his brow and whatnot, but Bucky is NOT a man of modern times. He takes liberties because that was what a lot of men of his generation did. What I hope you take away from this is that Bucky is regaining some of the male confidence that he’d lost. As for Rocket, if it had been anyone else touching his face and ears in his sleep, he would have ripped their fingers off.


	10. Chapter 10

“Good news, A-holes! We’ve got a job,” Quill announced with panache several days (and more than twice as many Berhert day-night cycles) later.

“Whoo-hoo!” Rocket whooped. “We got ourselves a client. And it’s about -- damn -- time.”

Bucky was pretty sure everyone else would agree; Rocket’s temper had been getting progressively shorter in recent days. The only person he hadn’t developed a tendency to snap at was Bucky, who could somehow get a civil conversation or thirty minutes of companionable silence out of him without much effort at all.

 _Cabin fever,_ Bucky mused. A new gig would sort Rocket out for sure.

“Excellent,” Drax murmured. “There are only so many different ways I can defeat my friend Bucky in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Oh, that’s what’s going on?” Bucky hassled him. “When I win it’s because you couldn’t think of a new way to beat me?”

Drax considered that for a moment before deciding: “Yes.”

Bucky snorted.

Gamora rounded on Quill, expression stern. “Who, what, where.”

“Who cares,” Rocket drawled, but Groot leaned back in his seat, looking interested. Mantis seemed equal parts eager and anxious.

Bucky knew the feeling. Because as happy as he was to add a new highlight to his day (something beyond indoor and outdoor therapy sessions), he was also concerned that anything unexpected could rock the boat just when he was getting used to having his head well above water.

Out of the five times Bucky had heard the activation phrase since Rocket’s intervention and gold-star coaching, he’d remained alert and in control for all of them. It was still torment of the purest kind and he still felt the weight of Hydra’s shadow looming over him, but it didn’t envelop him. Not anymore. Not unless he let it. And Bucky had zero plans to allow that to happen ever again.

Quill shared the details -- for all the good that it did Bucky. He didn’t recognize a single name, not the client’s or the target’s.

“You with us so far, Bucky?” Quill checked.

“Somebody’s lost some stuff and we’re gonna steal it back for them.”

Gamora cautioned Quill, “We’ve discussed these kinds of jobs--”

“Hey, it’ll be fun. And--” He nodded with conviction that he invited his audience to share. “--good money. Eh?”

“--jobs where we can’t be sure who the legitimate owner is. How would you like the Guardians of the Galaxy to become known as the Hustlers of the Galaxy?”

Quill opened his mouth--

Drax remarked, “This ship is not equipped to hustle a galaxy.”

Rocket smacked both paws over his brows, a bubble of helpless mirth eking out through his bared teeth. “The ship,” he said very slowly, “is fast. We can frickin’ hustle.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said firmly to Quill, who put up both hands in a gesture of defense.

“I know you don’t like stealing from nice people, buddy. I wouldn’t sign us up for anything like that.”

Gamora called him on it: “I don’t believe you.”

“Will you believe the provenance I managed to dig up?” He passed her a tablet with fanfare and a bright smile.

She glared as she grabbed it from him. “Perhaps. If you tell us where this Tome of Ra is…?”

“I was just getting to that part,” Quill assured her, swinging his arms. “We’re heading for Outpost 9.”

Gamora made no effort to conceal her suspicion: “A private collector on Outpost 9 has the tome?”

“Um… not exactly…”

The penny dropped for everyone except Drax, Mantis, and (of course) Bucky. Groot gasped.

“You want us to steal from the Priory,” Rocket punchlined flatly.

Quill nodded, lips smushed with a rueful twist.

Gamora jutted her chin out. “Setting aside the fact that there are dozens of security measures--”

“More like half a dozen,” Rocket amended with a shrug, which she ignored.

“--that is considered untouchable territory.”

“By Ravagers,” Quill explained, “which we are not.”

Rocket blinked. “Y’know, after all the times Yondu threatened to kill you, he might have actually had to go through with it for this. Good thing he’s dead.”

“What the _HELL,_ Rocket?”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“That was not nice. You should apologize.”

“I am Groot!”

“What?” Rocket protested grandly. “He is dead. Therefore, he cannot kill Quill for stealing from the Priory. D’you want me to imply that killing Quill is a _good_ thing?”

Bucky glanced at Mantis who (like Bucky) had remained silent during the dust-up, but she merely shrugged. Apparently, she hadn’t met this Yondu character, or only briefly.

Into the flabbergasted silence, Rocket pointed a finger at Groot, “We’ve already had more than one talk about your language, pal.”

Groot gave him a stubborn look, crossing his arms over his chest.

“God, I hate you,” Quill said, speaking to the ceiling and shaking his head in abject disbelief.

Gamora put out both hands. “It would be easier to recover the tome from its buyer.” She looked at Quill. When he didn’t offer a response, she exhaled in exasperation and summed up, “Which we know nothing about.”

“And,” Quill unhappily admitted, “if there is no buyer, then the tome could end up in the Pit indefinitely.”

Rocket lazily rolled his head on his neck, stretching. “I dunno about you guys, but I’m not waiting around for that. So, what’s it gonna be?”

Gamora tapped her fingers against her hip, thinking. “This only happens if we can get the vault and individual boxes open,” she said to Rocket.

“They’ll be open,” he dutifully promised.

Quill sighed and then grumbled at Rocket. “And if you can disable the dock lockdown.”

“No problem.”

“And,” Quill continued, “if you can do it all without being detected.”

“My specialty.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” Quill bristled.

“Yes,” Rocket volleyed, “because the only joy I get out of life is making you look foolish.”

“A simple enough task,” Drax muttered.

Quill put up both hands. “Assuming Rocket can do what he says he can do--”

Rocket’s ears flattened in warning, fangs flashing.

“--then we’re gonna need a plan.”

Twenty minutes later, they had one. As everyone stood to prep the ship for takeoff, Rocket slapped Bucky on the thigh. “You get all that?”

Drax spoke before Bucky could answer: “Yes. It will be highly enjoyable knocking you senseless across the outpost.”

“You’re gonna have to catch me first, Mister No-Aero-Rig. And I wasn’t talking to you.”

Just now taking note of the fact that Rocket and Bucky were standing toe-to-toe, Drax blinked. “Oh. I hadn’t noticed.”

Bucky had never heard anyone _anywhere_ say that without sneering, but Drax really honestly-and-for-true hadn’t been paying attention. As he ducked outside to check the docking clamps (as instructed), Bucky muttered, “Maybe we should be making sure Drax got all that.”

“He only ever listens to what he wants to hear, anyway.” Rocket chuckled at the look on Bucky’s face. “Just stick with Mantis until I come and find you. But first things first: we gotta get Groot all set for stopping the alarms from sounding and, trust me, that needs to happen. Once he gets his part done, Quill’s old Ravager codes will get him inside the Priory vault for the extraction; Mantis guarantees the compliance of the guards; Gamora and Drax clear a path to the docking bay and we are _gone._ It’s gonna be a -- how d’you humies say it -- a plate of cake?”

Bucky was less concerned with Earth sayings and more worried about: “How much practice does Mantis have at handling armed security guards?”

Rocket grinned. “Hey, she didn’t back off when you were trying to kill us. I think that says it all.”

Perhaps it did.

They launched within the hour.

“One hundred fifty-seven clicks to the jump point,” Gamora reported from the navigator’s seat.

Rocket unbuckled his copilot’s harness.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Quill harassed him.

“Got a ways to go before we get to the jump point,” Rocket said, “so I’m gonna do whatever I want. Maybe deliver a turd to someone’s pillow.” He detoured by Bucky’s chair and tapped him on the knee. “C’mon.”

“No point in me acting as lookout,” Bucky argued, loosening the seat straps. “Quill’s already gonna know it was you.”

“Smart ass.”

Bucky followed him below deck, down both sets of ladders. “I count myself lucky I don’t have a pillow.”

“You got that stupid arm, doncha?” Rocket pushed open the door to his room. “Get in here. We got work to do before Quill starts daydreaming and drifts us into a quantum asteroid field.”

It sounded like Rocket was speaking from experience. “I missed out on that one, too, huh?”

“Stick around. There’ll be another. Sit.” Rocket pointed to a low stool beside a cache of tools. A workstation ran the entire length of the room. Above it were various boxes and nets holding all sorts of odds and ends. Bucky glimpsed a small bed tucked up high in a corner, sheets and blankets smoothed out with military precision. In fact, now that Bucky looked a second time, he noticed that there was a clear sense of order to all the spare parts and equipment in the room. And cleanliness. Even the tools Rocket pulled out from the large chest beside the door had been polished.

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked as Rocket laid out each item in a specific order.

“Oh, nothing much. Just a little bet you probably forgot all about.” He crouched down and pulled a large box out from under the workstation. A box that was an arm’s length long and a slightly-bent-elbow’s width wide.

Bucky’s breath caught. “You…?”

“Yes, I. I have been slaving away on this for ages, pal. For the record, making custom body parts is a pain in the ass. Normally, I’d say people who are knocking around without a limb are good for a laugh, but if you lose this, I will not be happy.”

He lifted the lid and Bucky looked from stern brown eyes to a gleaming arm. It was sleek and impressive and it even had muscular contours in all the right places.

“Well?” Rocket prompted.

Bucky smiled. “Can’t wait to try it out.”

“Then let’s get this piece of shit off of you. Seriously. It really does look like a turd. One of Drax’s.”

Bucky shucked out of his jacket and then reached up-and-back to tug off both of his shirts. “I’m not going to ask how you know what Drax’s turds look like.”

“I think that’s a solid decision.”

With Rocket’s own tools at hand, the Ravager-made, mechanical arm popped off in under a minute.

“You’re not humming,” Bucky pointed out as Rocket chucked the old arm onto the workstation table.

“Just getting warmed up.”

“I think you’re nervous.”

“You think I’m what? No. That is ridiculous.”

“Don’t be,” Bucky continued, gleefully talking over Rocket’s protests. “I’d like anything you made for me.”

“You’re damn well right you would. You wanna know why? Because I am incapable of turning out pieces of useless shit.”

“That’s why you needed Drax’s.”

“I-- damn it. Shut up,” Rocket hissed on a genuine chuckle. “Genius at work here.”

And standing on tiptoe to (just barely) reach Bucky’s shoulder, no less. It was like watching Steve strut around town with newspaper stuffed in his shoes. Short people were hilarious.

Bucky beamed. “A genius, really? Where?”

Rocket ducked out from under the new arm that Bucky was very helpfully holding in place. He shook what looked like a pair of long-handled, needle-nose pliers at him. “Yeah, what am I thinking? You wouldn’t know a genius if he bit you.”

“Depends on where he bites me.” Bucky knew better than to smile this particular smile. He really did. But he couldn’t help it. This was Rocket, who had sacrificed sleep (for days on end!) just to Goddamn make him a new left arm.

The pliers nearly poked him in the nose. “I will bite. Somewhere,” Rocket threatened, mirth twinkling in his eyes, “where you’ll feel it.”

“That a promise?”

“If you don’t know what a promise sounds like, then you’re not gonna know what this sound is.”

“What sound?”

There was a brief but attention-getting tug on Bucky’s shoulder. A connection was made deep in his armpit. “The sound of you losing a bet.”

“That’s what that sounds like? This is a first.”

“I find that hard to believe.” A soft _click!_ and suddenly he could feel an actual arm and not just an alien prosthetic. Rocket leaned back. “There. Try it out.”

Bucky stood and angled himself so that he had room to swing. He judged the weight (perfect) and the responsiveness of the joints (excellent) and the grip of his new fingers (satisfying) and then admitted defeat with a grin. “You win. You’re a genius. What do you want?”

Rocket smirked. “I want your arm.” He jerked his thumb toward the castoff.

Bucky shrugged. “You paid for it.”

“Quill paid for it. And he’s gonna get it.”

“Don’t put it in his pillow,” Bucky urged, getting redressed. God, his cheeks were starting to hurt from all this stupid smiling.

Rocket’s chuckle was dark and sinister. It sent a tingle down Bucky’s spine. But those eyes were still scanning him critically. Measuring and weighing. Three layers of fabric were no barrier at all. “I do good work.”

“You realize you’re basically exchanging a pillow-soft turd arm for this masterpiece.” He twisted the state-of-the-art prosthetic this way and that. After all of his efforts to control the Winter Soldier, Bucky felt like he was being given an award. “Doesn’t seem fair.”

“It will be. Once you take the blame for what I’m gonna do with the old one.”

Bucky winced theatrically. “Isn’t there anything I can do to talk you out of it? I’m starting to like here. Don’t want Quill to kick me off his ship.”

Rocket sneered. “Please. The _Milano_ is _my_ ship. You ain’t going anywhere.”

Bucky’s lips parted, but no words came out. He was looking into Rocket’s dark eyes as Rocket looked into his and that tingle from a moment ago turned into a zing that Bucky felt in the tips of his fingers. All ten of them.

“Coming up on that jump point,” Rocket reminded both of them, voice gruff.

Bucky nodded. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Rocket blinked and, Goddamn, he _could_ blush under all that fur. Bucky was sure of it. He dared to give Rocket’s chin a playful bump (with his right hand) and then opened the door with his left. “After you.”

“Took long enough,” Quill complained when they returned to the cockpit. Bucky caught Gamora’s eye as she noticed his new arm and gave a nod of approval.

Rocket hopped into the copilot’s seat. “Oh, quit your whining. I wasn’t gonna make you fly this big, scary ship all by yourself.”

“Big, scary ship? Well, if that’s how you feel about it, then I don’t think you _should_ fly it. It’s clearly too much for you to handle.”

“Pal, you have no idea of how much I can handle.”

Quill’s chuckle was filthy. “I bet Bucky does.”

“Five clicks to the jump point,” Gamora mercifully interjected. But when she glanced Bucky’s way, her brows quirked because, damn it, he knew he was blushing. The beard and his long hair couldn’t hide all of it.

The armrest beneath his left hand creaked in his superhuman grip and Gamora glanced away with a smirk. Damn, this was getting ridiculous.

They reached Outpost 9 running on fumes and Quill had to allow the space station service crew to tow them in for a refueling that was going to take nearly an hour what with how drained the ship was.

“This is embarrassing,” Rocket complained.

Quill replied, “It’s part of our cover, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. Recon and prep work while we look like a bunch of morons with time to kill.”

“It’s not a bad plan,” Gamora volunteered.

Rocket snarked, “Except for the possibility of all hell breaking loose and there we sit on the frickin’ dock without a ship ready to go.”

“I would not advise sitting down in the middle of Hell.” Drax counseled, “When you are going through Hell, the best thing to do is keep going.”

Rocket was tellingly silent; Bucky imagined him rolling his eyes.

Quill performed a fist pump of victory. “Excellent point, Drax.”

Gamora drummed her fingers on the navigation console and, in the silence that followed, Bucky felt like they were waiting for him to say something, but he honestly didn’t know enough about the layout of space structures (in general or this one in particular) to anticipate what they would be needing while they were on it. He was flying blind.

Bucky studied the leviathan looming larger and larger in the cockpit windows. It was a banking satellite, according to the ship’s database. A black market hub, according to Gamora. A place to store valuables pending top secret, hush-hush, armed-to-the-teeth courier transfer to buyers all over the known universe, according to Quill. A hunk of metal in outer space, according to Drax, and a frickin’ good time, according to Rocket.

Bucky smirked, twitched his chin in a lazy nod and slapped the armrests of his seat. “Ready to comply,” he joked flatly and Rocket jerked visibly before looking back at Bucky over his shoulder.

“Cool!” Quill enthused. “I know a great place with a jukebox.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I hadn’t noticed” -- I love how Drax zones out sometimes (Guardians of the Galaxy, first movie: “When did we decide that? I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking of something else.”)
> 
> quantum asteroid field (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2) -- while evading the Sovereign space fleet, Quill and Rocket get into an argument over who gets to pilot the Milano (II) though a quantum asteroid field. Gamora loses patience with them over it, big time. (This is also the part where Rocket first threatens to put one of Drax’s “famously huge” turds in Quill’s pillow.)
> 
> newspaper in shoes (Captain America: Civil War) -- I’m not entirely sure why Steve wore newspaper in his shoes. There are lots of reasons: to fill in the toes if the shoes are too big (which is consistent with the over-large sport coat that Steve wears to Stark’s Expo ‘43), to give you a bit of lift in the heel if you want to look taller, to insulate your feet against cold and wind, etc.
> 
> I originally wanted to write Bucky as thinking that “small” people were hilarious, but I didn’t think it would come across the way I intended. I’m not trying to be mean, y’know? But, OK. If Rocket thinks that amputees are useless and hilarious, then Bucky is going to have similar inappropriate humor about petite people. Just, it’s my headcanon thing.
> 
> Also, I really like the possibility of Rocket being slightly (or considerably) OCD (because I am too, probably). But also, it seems consistent with the raccoon mythos/behavior of hand-washing.
> 
> FYI: the main focus of the coming chapters will be on Bucky and Rocket, so the mission details will filter in as needed. I don’t like writing mission briefings before the actual action happens (unless nothing ends up going as planned) because it feels redundant to me: I’d rather Show, not Tell.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags that apply to this chapter: interspecies shenanigans
> 
> Also, the main (and most ridiculous?) reason I wanted Groot to be all grown up for this fic is here in this chapter: the drinking of booze (lots of booze).

They disembarked in one loud, boisterous group. Bucky threw his right arm over Mantis’ shoulders, acting like he had one thing (and one thing only) on his mind: showing a ladybug a good time.

As he scanned the cargo-container-cluttered dock, Bucky was able to recognize several symbols. Everyone had made an effort, but it had mostly been Gamora who’d taught him the common language of space, little by little, usually at the galley table and often over cups of steaming blue space java. Something in Bucky still rebelled at instruction (maybe because it vaguely echoed of Hydra’s invasion of his mind) but _now_ that tight and secret wariness unlocked, snapped open, and faded away, bolstering Bucky’s faith in the goodness of his friends, who were in fact true. Here was only one more proof of it.

And Mantis felt it. Bucky returned her smile as she gave his hand a pat. She had no way of knowing what was making him almost giddy, but she was as eager as ever to share in a friend’s joy.

Rocket was keeping lookout from the vantage point provided by Groot’s shoulder, a fake smile revealing sharp teeth. When his gaze slid toward Bucky, Bucky was ready with a high-five from his left hand.

They slapped palms and Bucky pointed at him. “You’re getting the first round, right?”

“Hah, hah! In your dreams!” he barked, blowing off Bucky’s announcement with a sneer that was in no way strained. Not like that frozen smile had been.

Quill acted both the part of Gamora’s beau and that of group tour guide, showing them the way through noisy, unsleeping streets to his favorite dive. This was only the second bar Bucky had seen in outer space, but already he could tell that these kinds of establishments were pretty much the same everywhere: advertisements acting as wall art and the bar itself acting as a fortified trench against islands of tables and chairs amid sticky floors.

Oddly enough, the jukebox looked exactly like the ones back on Earth and Bucky froze, a moment of homesickness nearly knocking his knees out from under him.

Mantis was ready, tucking herself up against his side for support and whispering his name.

“Whew, sorry!” He puffed out his cheeks. “Guess that last hyper-jump’s still with me.” He pinched her cheek and she giggled.

Their group fell upon a large table near an open space in the room that might have been intended for dancing, but would work just fine for starting their scheduled “bar fight.” And once Rocket and Drax got themselves thrown out in the street, they could get on with the necessary sleight of hand.

Drax perched himself regally upon his seat while Groot was poking suspiciously at his.

“If you ain’t gonna sit there, I will,” Rocket threatened, which got Groot settled quickly enough.

Bucky wasn’t thrilled with having his back to the door, but Gamora needed to be able to count and time Outpost 9’s security patrols.

Slapping his hands together and rubbing his palms briskly, Quill offered to get the first round. He jogged up to the bar, snagging the bartender’s attention with his Star Lord Smile (patent pending).

“Not worried about what he’s gonna bring back for you?” Rocket asked from the neighboring seat.

Bucky shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t get drunk.”

“You can’t _what!?”_

“The, uh, mods,” he explained, using the term Rocket had taught him instead of mentioning “serum” in a bar half-full of strangers. Unknown variables. Potential enemies.

“Oh. Right. Damn, that’s rough,” Rocket commiserated while Bucky tracked Quill’s slinking approach to the jukebox. _Moth to flame._

Not a minute later, something annoyingly upbeat burst out of the bar’s audio system just as the blue-skinned bartender waved Quill over and shoved a tray of filled glasses at him. DIY -- deliver it yourself.

“Here we go!” he sang out, placing the tray down in the center of the table without spilling a single drop of pale green liquid from the brimming glasses. Bucky was impressed and went with it because he wasn’t supposed to be looking too dangerous. Not unless he absolutely had to.

Bucky pulled his right arm out from where he’d draped it over the back of Mantis’ chair and picked up a glass. Offered it to her with a smile. “Ladybugs first.”

She took it with a happy wiggle of her whole being and Bucky’s smile widened at her enthusiasm. The poor girl was starved for attention. He’d have to be careful with her. Although, it wasn’t like she didn’t know he wasn’t interested. Kind of hard to miss with her empathy.

“Don’t forget yours, hot shot,” Rocket said a little too loudly and Bucky felt a glass bump into his new fingers. Cold. Hard. Rocket had really nailed the sensory input.

“Thanks, little guy,” Bucky answered with a condescending grin.

Rocket laid his ears back.

“What’s eatin’ you?” Bucky murmured, nudging Rocket’s knee with his thigh under the table. Sure, Bucky wasn’t all that thrilled with the hassle of putting on a show of a social outing, but this was work, damn it. And having his arm around the girl he was supposed to be spending the majority of the next hour with was a helluvalot less attention-getting than the picture he and Rocket would make together. Hands down.

“Um. Nothing,” Rocket muttered. “Left my happy pants back on the ship.”

Bucky laughed and lifted his glass. “This’ll cheer you up.”

“I doubt that.” But Rocket collected his own drink and they both looked to Quill for the requisite toast.

Quill moved to stand behind Gamora’s chair, giving the appearance of crowding her but, incidentally, allowing Bucky a clear view past Quill’s empty seat to the bar’s emergency exit and the lone patrons nursing various concoctions in the gloom. “So,” he began, weaving a bit like he was punch drunk, “we’ve been through it these last ten--” He paused and reconsidered the math. “Fifteen… twenty days or so.”

“More like ‘year,’” Gamora murmured.

“Which is why,” Quill enthused as if suddenly struck by inspiration, “we’re gonna let Groot take this one. Give us a toast, man.”

Brows hiked up nearly to his hairline, Bucky shifted to give Groot his full attention. Groot scooped up a glass, held it aloft, and told all of them with clear pride, “We are Groot!”

“Yea!” Quill yowled, arcing his drink over the table to clink with everyone’s glass in turn. Bucky let out a whoop as Drax shook his head and muttered under his breath. But Gamora produced a genuine smile and that was an honest-to-God shocker.

It didn’t help that the fist sip of his drink went down like a gym sock soaked in tree sap. But, hell, Groot was enjoying it. Everyone else seemed to notice this at the same time. Wincing, Quill slid his barely touched drink in Groot’s direction. The others quickly mimicked him.

“Drax, you pick it this time,” Gamora pleaded and he promptly rose to answer the call.

Bucky asked Rocket, “What are the odds he’s gonna bring back a better tasting one than Quill?”

Rocket shrugged moodily.

Bucky had to practically fist his left hand to keep from putting it on Rocket’s arm. “Don’t feel up for this?”

“I’m up for it. I just--I say dumb shit when I drink too much.”

Quill asked with perfect innocence, “How is that different from when you _don’t_ drink?”

“Don’t test me, jackass!” Rocket snarled, shifting like he really was gonna fly across the table and scratch Quill’s smile off.

Wondering why Rocket wasn’t directing his energies toward provoking Drax (as planned), Bucky again nudged Rocket. “I’ll keep an eye on ya,” he promised, winking.

Rocket snorted. The tension bled out of him. “You might as well, since it looks like your date has dumped you for my bag man.”

Bucky glanced over his shoulder and had to laugh. Groot was producing a variety of flowers (one by one) in his palm (and in between sips of tree sap drink) with increasingly crazy petal arrangements. “That Groot’s version of balloon animals?”

“Humie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bucky turned the full force of his just-you-and-me smile on Rocket and asked, “Do you care?”

“Um. Surprisingly, no. Not at all.”

Another tray appeared on the table. The drinks were blue this time. Like sapphires.

“Drax, give us a toast!”

At the man’s blank look, Quill rephrased, “A short, _short_ speech -- a few words of appreciation.”

Drax nodded and lifted a glass. Bucky selected one and waited for everyone to join in.

“My friends,” Drax began, “these past weeks, you have all been far less irksome than usual. I am grateful to my friend, the warrior human Bucky, for enabling this.”

There was a beat of silence that warbled between baffled and incredulous.

Standing up on his seat, Rocket raised his glass. “To Bucky,” he proposed solemnly.

Quill added his voice to that quiet rallying cry: “To Bucky.”

Mantis and Gamora joined in, clinking glasses with Bucky’s. Groot extended his second glass of tree sap. With a brief salute, Bucky took a sip of gemstone blue. It was tangy and thin. Like flavored water. But when he exhaled, the fumes seared the inside of his nose.

“Whew,” Bucky critiqued. “Now that’s a drink that’ll put hair on your chest.”

Drax jolted, alarmed at the prospect, and Bucky quickly placated him with a wave of his hand.

“Probably not yours, though. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I would not mind having hair on my chest,” Mantis told the group and, as Quill sputtered out a guffaw, Bucky glanced up from her already half-empty glass to ask, “How often have you drunk?”

She blinked in confusion (whatever this drink was, it was clearly going to her head way too fast) and he indicated the glasses on the table and in their hands.

“Oh! Never!”

 _Son of a bitch._ “Right. OK.” Bucky stood up and held out his hand to her. Luckily, a not-too-fast song was playing. “Let’s dance. Give you a breather.” Before the next color of the rainbow landed on their table.

Mantis cringed back, scandalized. “I do not know how to dance.”

“Quill,” Gamora said in a sly tone. “I think you should show her. With Bucky.”

 _Devil woman._ Bucky shook a finger at her, but she merely winked.

“That,” Quill said consideringly, “is a fantastic idea.” He grooved around the table with a horrifying series of slow pelvic thrusts and, upon concluding a pointless spin, offered his hand to Bucky.

“No,” Bucky flatly refused.

“Oh, c’mon! Don’t leave me hanging. Don’t you wanna show Mantis what dancing’s all about?”

“Not with you.”

“It’ll make Gamora happy.”

“You’re a schmuck.”

Quill wiggled his hips.

“Goddamn it. Stop.” Bucky huffed and tried really hard to ignore Rocket’s gleeful twittering. But he couldn’t. If this was what put a smile on Rocket’s face, he’d Goddamn dance with Quill. “Fine, but I lead. And you behave yourself.”

Hands up, Quill bobbed his head in time with the music. Sighing, Bucky grabbed his hand and resigned himself to putting his other hand on Quill’s waist. At least it’d be near a quad blaster.

“Whoa, whoa. What’re you doing, Buck?”

Bucky froze. No one called him Buck. No one except Steve. Anger blossomed and exploded under Bucky’s skin, but he managed a smile. Stiff, but still technically a smile. “I’m not putting up with that spineless wiggling. One real dance. Take it or leave it.”

Quill chuckled. “No, OK. OK. This’ll be good for a laugh.” He stepped up to Bucky and Bucky collected his hands, holding one politely and placing the other on his shoulder.

“Don’t forget to pick up your feet,” Bucky warned him and then pushed Quill into a slow and simplified East Coast Swing.

Three seconds into it, Quill’s jaw dropped and he made no effort to pick it back up off the floor, but he kept his feet moving and let Bucky twist and twirl him, left and right, back and forth, until Mantis was practically screaming with laughter and Gamora was pounding the table with mirth. Drax was staring out at the street with an air of profound suffering, but Groot was nodding along to the beat, drumming the fingers of one hand on his knee, shoulders twitching.

Bucky didn’t look at Rocket. He didn’t want to know how much of an ass he was making of himself.

Damn, it’d been ages -- decades -- another life since Bucky had danced. He still remembered the last time: the night before his deployment. The night Steve had blithely and single-mindedly bailed on Bucky’s foolproof double-date plan. Instead of taking two lovely girls out dancing, that little punk had insisted on trying to enlist for the fifth damn time.

_And as they say, the rest is history._

Jaw clenching, Bucky scanned the bar as he maneuvered Quill out of range of his toes, this way and that, keeping time with the song’s closing chorus.

 _Thank God._ There was only so much nauseating nostalgia Bucky could stand.

The song ended and Bucky stopped immediately. Quill didn’t. He put on a show of being dizzy, flailing his arms with comical exaggeration. Bucky patted his cheek and then gave him a kick to his rear end, sending him off in Gamora’s direction.

The next song was a little faster, but Bucky forced himself to reissue his initial invitation to Mantis. “Ladybug? Wanna give it a try?”

“I will vomit on you!” she gleefully predicted and Bucky patted her shoulder, relieved.

He fell back into his chair and took a sip of his blue drink because that was how people fidgeted in bars.

Rocket shifted. “What the hell was that?”

“East Coast Swing. The dance of dances.” He shrugged. “From my time, anyway. I don’t know what the hell Quill was doing; that wasn’t dancing.”

“That,” Gamora declared, twirling her fingers in imitation of their performance, “was precious.”

“Of course it was!” Quill concurred. “Because that’s what I am!”

“First, last, and only time, Gamora,” Bucky informed her, making a very manly effort not to be charmed by her admiring expression.

A warm weight pressed against his left arm and Bucky shifted to give Rocket room as he reached across to collect Bucky’s nearly full glass. Rocket’s was empty, up-ended on the tabletop. It was a dick move where Bucky came from… and probably in most places in outer space, too.

“Aren’t I supposed to be keeping an eye on you?” Bucky mused, his lips brushing against Rocket’s ear.

Rocket didn’t return to his seat. Claiming Bucky’s drink seemed to entitle him to Bucky himself and suddenly Rocket was draped over his new arm, snugging his bottom into the crook of Bucky’s elbow. “Think you’re a little behind on that, cutie.”

“Sorry,” Bucky breathed and felt a shiver run from the base of Rocket’s skull all the way down to the tip of his tail. He was supposed to be acting the part of Mantis’ date but, damn, after that stumble down memory lane, Bucky needed this and was having way too much fun to pull back.

_To hell with following orders._

“Oh, yeah?” Rocket checked, sloshing a gulp of blue liquid into his mouth.

Bucky curled his fingers over Rocket’s on the glass to both steady it and pace Rocket. “No, actually. I’m not sorry at all. Consider this territory marked, caveman.”

His snout wrinkled up in distaste. “I am not a ‘caveman.’”

“You’re jealous,” Bucky rumbled low, for Rocket’s ears alone. “Definitely caveman.”

Rocket reared back and gave Bucky his best, most menacing snarl.

“Rocket!” Drax belted out. “Our friend Bucky’s arm is not a piece of furniture for you to lounge upon.”

Rocket’s ears flattened against his skull. Damn, but his fuse was short today and Bucky knew Rocket well enough to realize this was no act. “I made it. I can sit on it if I want to, you--”

Bucky bumped Rocket’s jaw with his own before the insult flew out because maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for Rocket to pick a fight after all. Not with the mood he was in. “It’s fine, Drax. I don’t mind. My arm’s not exactly doing much of anything right now.”

Rocket tucked his nose close to Bucky’s ear and throatily rasped, “I can figure out something for it to do,” just as Mantis declared, “Oh, that is the arm Rocket has been working on day and night!” …and then she placed her hand on Bucky’s bare right wrist while shivers were still dancing down his spine, shortening his breath.

“Oh! Oh…” Mantis groaned drunkenly. Bucky eased his arm out from under her hand as unobtrusively as possible, which was not at all. “Wow,” she breathed. “Yours is stronger than Quill’s. You--”

“OK!” Quill said in a blatant attempt to distract Mantis from whatever she was about to divulge. “Who’s buying the next round of--”

“Bucky, Rocket,” Drax addressed them jointly. “This behavior is pointless. Setting aside that you are both males, the differences in your species will not allow you to mate.”

Rocket went limp against Bucky’s shoulder, snickering. “Oh, Drax.” He crooned, “Such a romantic!”

“So my Ovette complained many times over the years.” And from the tone of his voice, he missed those scoldings dearly.

Bucky sent a smile Drax’s way. “Only a man with a heart as pure as yours could be so mighty a warrior.”

Drax straightened, pleased with the compliment.

But Bucky wasn’t done.

“That’s the only thing that’s going to save you tomorrow when Rocket sobers up and has a hankering to shove the business end of that clunky laser cannon of his up your ass.” Smile widening, Bucky added, “Given the rumored size of your famously huge turds, the barrel of that gun might just fit.”

Mantis’ jaw dropped. Gamora covered her face with her hands before there were witnesses to the tears of hilarity leaking from her eyes. Quill was delirious, long past obnoxiously loud and well into breathless. Groot produced a small, pink tea rose and offered it to Drax with a smug grin.

Drax absently batted the flower away as he worriedly replied to Bucky’s observation, “That may be so.”

“Hmm,” Rocket mumbled. “Laser cannon up the woo-woo.” He giggled. “I like the way you think, bright eyes.”

“Drax,” Mantis loudly whispered, “I think your crabby puppy likes Bucky better than he likes you.”

“Rocket is not my puppy,” Drax insisted woodenly, as though this was not the first time he’d corrected her and it probably wasn’t going to be the last.

Quill propped his jaw in his hand. “Well, I can see my discretion in this matter--” He made a vaguely crude hand gesture at the picture Rocket and Bucky presented. “--was a total wasted effort. Man!” To Gamora, he lamented, “All the gossip we could have swapped.”

“That is not all you wish to swap with her!” Mantis announced with beautiful timing. She was barely staying upright on her chair, swaying to the music Quill had queued up.

Bucky put out his right hand to offer a barrier (if needed) and Groot gently stretched an arm around her shoulders from Mantis’ opposite side to brace her.

“Keep those wings fluttering, ladybug,” Bucky chided gently. The evening wasn’t over with yet and everyone still had a job to do. Although, in retrospect, Bucky was questioning the group social outing aspect of the evening.

“Nice plan this,” Bucky said to Quill, who scrubbed both hands over his face.

“Yeah. My bad. Too much party for the uninitiated.” Leaning back, Quill slapped his thighs, shadowing the drumbeat of the song. “Let’s hit a cafe next.”

“We’ll just take her back to the ship,” Gamora argued, despite the fact that this would complicate things less than an hour from now. If Mantis wasn’t in any shape to make sure the Priory guards were as complacent as sheep, things were going to get ugly.

“What? No! The night is young! She’ll perk up after a cup of space sludge.”

Bucky snorted at Quill’s unfounded optimism.

“In the meantime, Drax can give her a shoulder to lean on for the evening… since Bucky’s been _claimed.”_

“And he ain’t complaining!” Rocket crowed.

Bucky tucked his jaw back far enough to meet those mischievous, dark eyes. “You wanna take me out, show me off?”

Quill looked away from the table, muttering, “More like he wants you to take him back to your bunk and _get_ him off.”

“Get him off what?” Mantis wanted to know.

Gamora smacked Quill on the arm. “They’re cute,” she fiercely defended over his disgruntled squeal. “Stop judging.”

Bucky tucked his smile back into the corners of his mouth as best he could because Quill might be the first, but he’d hardly be the last and only to judge this thing (and Bucky couldn’t deny that there was definitely “a thing”) between Bucky and Rocket, but Rocket had his priorities in order, as usual:

Taking another swallow of Bucky’s drink, Rocket grumbled, “Eh, forget about ‘im for now. We’ll shoot ‘im later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody mentions it to Bucky but, after Groot’s music festival choice for their shore leave, everyone decided to enjoy their free time separately. So there haven’t been many (if any) drink-as-a-group occasions since the first movie. (I mean, they practically rub elbows on the ship 24/7, so a little breathing room would be nice, yeah? Also, Rocket seems to swing like a pendulum when he’s drunk (in the first movie) so I can see him making an effort to avoid bars.) 
> 
> Decepticonsensual’s fic “A Fool Unto Himself” has them all RPGing in a bar and OMG IT IS SO ADORKABLE I LOVE IT. But in this fic, the group hasn’t discovered the joys of RPGing yet.
> 
> Rocket laughs when Quill volunteers to dance with Bucky because Bucky calls Quill a schmuck (and refuses to dance with him at first) and Rocket finds that hilarious. The actual dancing, though, he does not. He is jealous as hell and drinking way too fast. (Meanwhile, Bucky thinks Rocket actually wants to see him dance with Quill. Oi vey. Dumb boys are dumb.)
> 
> Bucky starts flirting heavily with Rocket after the dance because, frankly, that moment of nostalgia really bothered him. So he turns on the charm and Rocket is down with that, which renews Bucky’s confidence and does a pretty spiffy job of cheering him up. Things snowball from there and Bucky makes the executive decision to prevent Rocket from starting a fight with Drax.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags that apply to this chapter: making out for the sake of the mission & making out for the hell of it

Drax was more than happy to take Mantis to a cafe.

He mumbled by way of explanation, “I like biscotti.”

Possibly more than he liked the idea of staging an extended, outpost-encompassing fist fight with Rocket. Because that was what he was giving up in exchange for biscotti. Frankly, Bucky was speechless.

Quill tapped his watch. “Keep an eye on Mantis, yeah? Gamora will stop by later. One hour and counting.” He winked. “Be there or be square.”

Drax scowled in vague offense, but Mantis was already tugging him toward a cozy coffee shop. There was an empty table by the window. Perfect for people watching, specifically the security staff patrolling the Priory, which meant that Drax and Mantis were in position, ready or not.

“You and I,” Quill told Gamora with a suggestive wiggle of his brows, “are gonna do that thing that you love to do.”

“Watch you humiliate yourself in public?”

He rocked back on his heels. “Even more than that!”

“Shoot guns?”

“Yes!” He looked so proud of her for giving him the right answer, too.

“I am Groot,” Groot said with a nod toward the nearest public restroom.

Given the fact that Groot had downed all seven glasses of green liquor, Bucky wasn’t surprised. What did surprise him was how spry Groot was on his feet because of it. Not a swaying branch in sight.

“OK, have fun recycling,” Rocket said from where he was standing next to Bucky with a hand curled around the back of Bucky’s thigh.

The shivers from earlier kept right on coming and, oh hell, Bucky was getting goose bumps from that tease of a touch. People were staring at him now. Both him and Rocket.

Bucky waved as Quill and Gamora disappeared through a grand entryway, beyond which a laser tag arcade was located. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Groot duck into the public restroom to, er, “use” the facilities. Mantis and Drax were inside ordering at the counter of the cafe, waffling over their choices like they had all the time in the world.

“Where’re we off to, tiger?” Bucky asked because, at this point, he was just along for the ride.

Rocket tilted his head, a wary look eclipsing the drunken leer. “What’s a tiger?”

“What’s a--OK. Right.” Of course Rocket wouldn’t know anything about the animals on Earth. But, hey, Bucky could work with that. Crouching, he flicked Rocket’s tail. “It’s got stripes,” he drawled, and if he’d been smart about it, Bucky would’ve stopped there and picked the fight that had been so carefully planned out. But he really didn’t want to hit Rocket. Not even pretend to hit him. So he kept on talking before Rocket ended up feeding him a knuckle sandwich: “And sharp claws. Fangs, too. Always on the prowl for good-looking fellas to gobble up.”

Rocket sidled closer, bumping into Bucky’s knee. “You’re trying to get a compliment outta me. That’s not gonna work.”

“So… not a tiger?”

Rocket growled and Bucky’s smile widened.

“I’m in fear for my life,” he declared softly.

Rocket grabbed his right hand and tugged. “Then I’d better get you off these dangerous streets, cutie. Might be tigers roaming.”

Bucky refrained from mentioning how at home a hungry tiger would feel wandering through narrow alleys and slinking through shadows like he and Rocket were doing. They found an emergency ladder and scampered up to the roof of a tattoo and cosmetic mod parlor.

“Nice view,” Bucky commented as he scanned the glowing streets below. “Really puts a guy in the mood.”

He turned back around and found Rocket inching toward a ventilation panel of the building that butted up against the parlor: target number one.

“In the mood for what?” Rocket shot back.

Bucky considered the angles of view from the street as he strolled over and leaned against the wall, crowding Rocket in a universally understood pose. Bucky’s torso would just about block the vent from being seen. Rocket leaped up onto on a ledge, removing the vent cover swiftly and in silence. When he turned back around, his eyes were almost level with Bucky’s.

And Bucky didn’t back up or back off. He couldn’t. Not unless he wanted to risk someone seeing that vent hanging open and start asking questions. So Bucky didn’t move and Rocket had nowhere to go.

For a moment, neither of them moved a muscle. Despite all the flirting and innuendo, Bucky found himself locked in place. _The jump point,_ Rocket had inadvertently dubbed it. Bucky’s pulse raced.

“What are we doing?” Rocket asked, looking very, very sober all of a sudden.

Bucky angled his chin down. “Nothing you don’t want. Nothing I don’t want.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“People do it every day.”

“Do what exactly?” Rocket rasped. “This?”

He pressed both paws to Bucky’s chest and nuzzled the underside of Bucky’s jaw, from his chin to the heated spaces concealed by his unbound hair. “Uh-hmm.” Damn, that felt so good. Like flying with his feet still on the ground.

“Or something like this?” Rocket’s breath was hot and humid against Bucky’s neck and then an agile tongue flicked his earlobe. Bucky’s breathing hitched, catching in his chest. Sharp teeth nipped tender skin.

“Shit!” Bucky panted, pushing closer to Rocket, who tsked.

“That bad, huh? Let’s try something else…”

A paw slid up his chest and into his hair, claws whispering over his skull just above the nape of his neck. Tugging and tangling. Groaning, Bucky lowered his face to Rocket’s shoulder, inhaling too many scents to categorize. There was something like engine grease and overheated electrical wires, and there was something musky yet soft. Warm and comforting. Rocket’s claws scraped again and Bucky cupped the side of Rocket’s smirking face.

“Or this?” he breathed, feathering his right thumb over Rocket’s whiskers, burrowing his fingers into the fur at the base of his ear.

Rocket’s chest expanded sharply as he sucked in a deep breath. His deep-throated growl rumbled against Bucky’s jaw as Rocket’s snout rubbed a wide swath through his short beard. “How can you smell this frickin’ good?”

Not caring that they’d have to be on the move soon, Bucky dared to trace the edge of Rocket’s ear. Just to feel the shudder that ran through his lithe body. Just to hear the whimper that was muffled by Bucky’s beard and skin.

Rocket’s clawed hand fisted in Bucky’s hair and shit that stung. Just a bit. Just enough. Just-- _hnn._ Bucky felt his lashes flutter. “Rocket--”

A soft whir from the vent shaft reached his ears and Bucky forced himself to shift back, give Rocket room to collect the robotic gizmo he’d sent in to conduct recon, maybe loosen up a few bolts, and then drop the first of its four payloads (if Quill hadn’t already busted the robot’s controller in a game of laser tag with Gamora, that is).

The silence was charged as Rocket replaced the panel. Bucky was sure the fine hairs at the back of his own neck were standing on end.

They didn’t stick around. Rocket ducked under his arm and took off, grinning. Bucky followed in what was meant to look like amorous pursuit to anyone watching.

It was a quick leap to the neighboring rooftop and then the one behind that. Their next target was another vent, but this one didn’t have a panel that needed removal. There was just a fan with a dust guard over it. Bucky made sure no one could see them from the street, but there was a security camera overhead, anchored to the dome of the satellite. There was only so much he could block with his body. The rest would have to be done via distraction.

He leaned down, almost crouching over Rocket from behind, and caught the tip of Rocket’s ear between his lips.

Rocket yelped. His knees sagged. “What the--”

“Cameras,” Bucky exhaled, nosing through the fur along Rocket’s neck.

“Are we--” He gulped. “--giving them a show?”

“One they’re sure to remember.” Bucky slid his hand around to the front of Rocket’s chest and down to the pouch on his belt. He lifted the flap easily and Rocket’s arm brushed his as he pulled out the tiny robot surveyor.

Bucky’s hand withdrew to Rocket’s belly. “Giving you an excuse to brace yourself,” he warned, his hand dropping below Rocket’s belt, to his thigh.

“Frickin’ shit balls!” he hissed, slapping his hand against the vent and poking the recon tech into the chute.

“Too much?” Bucky checked, his back starting to strain as he hunched behind Rocket.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He nipped Rocket’s ear again. In the same place. Ran his bristled chin over the thin, veined skin.

A whine vibrated out Rocket’s nose.

“Three more to go,” Bucky panted. “At some point, I’m gonna go too far.” His fingers stirred on Rocket’s thigh and it was wrong. So very wrong but, damn it, so good.

“Or not far enough,” Rocket groaned, letting his forehead drop to the wall. From the chute came the quiet whir of the robot returning.

“Shove me to the left,” he urged Rocket, who did just that.

Bucky put out a hand on the wall to catch himself. Under his extended arm, Rocket made his move, quick as a rattlesnake, and plucked the device from the chute.

Rocket turned to look him in the eye. A challenge. “Next one’s mine.” The robotic surveyor dropped into Bucky’s front pants pocket.

“Then what’s the hold up?”

Rocket grabbed his right wrist, claws pinching skin, and hauled him from the rooftop. The next location was a highrise hotel terrace. They stuck to the shadows behind the holoscreened shrubbery and light show, staying low and unseen by lounging guests (just meters away) until Rocket shoved him flat on his back, pounced onto Bucky’s belly, and, with a slinky move of his arm, retrieved the robot from his pocket.

“At your mercy,” Bucky said with a slow smile, spreading his arms and rolling his hips, lifting Rocket up a scant inch just as he flicked the robot into a ridiculously small, open pipe.

Rocket leaned forward and pressed his brow to Bucky’s. “So I can do whatever I want.”

“That’s how it works.”

With his next breath, Bucky was biting down hard on his own lower lip as Rocket softly scratched at Bucky’s chest through the fabric of his shirts. He jerked when a single claw glanced the edge of a nipple. _Holy shit._ He wasn’t going to survive the last two excursions. No way.

But, he’d have to do his best to make it. Even if that meant spreading his thighs a bit to give himself a little more room as he tried not to arch his spine. Tried to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. Rocket was ruthless.

And then the telltale whir. Bucky shifted as if to grab Rocket’s arm and they tussled. In the midst of flailing arms, the robot was scooped up and tucked away. Back in Rocket’s pouch this time.

He shot off of Bucky, leading the way.

Fourth stop. A maintenance shed. It was locked and the target was enclosed on the other side of a thin, metal wall. There were no cameras, no possible lines of sight.

Kneeling, Bucky flipped the alien knife neatly in his left hand and stabbed right into the shed wall. He dragged it across, opening the metal up like it was little more than a sheet of aluminum foil.

Rocket was tucked into the narrow space with him, pressed against his back, his arms daring to creep around his waist.

“All set,” Bucky reported and then had to squeeze his eyes shut as Rocket reached over and between his spread knees and nudged the robot toward the target’s grating and through it. But the paw didn’t retreat. Not before it slid along the inside of Bucky’s thigh and then up to his hip where it stayed put. Claws poked through the fabric. A warm snout nuzzled between Bucky’s shoulders.

“You don’t have to,” Bucky began, his breaths thinning. No one could see them here. They didn’t have to put on a show for the sake of a cover as the robot infiltrated the Priory’s infrastructure to plant the fourth and final payload to the security system’s power source.

“I didn’t have to do any of it. We could’ve faked a fight like Drax and I had planned.” A single claw squiggled down Bucky’s back, tracing a winding route around each vertebra.

Bucky swallowed. “So we’re jumping?”

Rocket’s hands stilled. “That’s what it feels like.”

Bucky looked over his shoulder and gave Rocket a lopsided smile. “For the record, that wasn’t a complaint.”

Rocket grabbed his left arm and hauled him through an about-face with surprising strength. Paws framed his jaw. Those damned claws passed teasingly through his beard. Bucky rocked forward on his knees, pressing his forehead to Rocket’s.

“Hydra spent years working me over,” Bucky warned, hating that he had to warn Rocket because Bucky had never felt more like himself than he did with this batshit crazy, tortured and manic soul, and he wanted that. Wanted to be himself again. If only he could just… just go for it and ignore the rest.

Rocket’s scowl was almost a sneer. “Won’t need years to pry their slimy tentacles off of you. Know why?”

Bucky could guess, but he didn’t want to steal Rocket’s thunder. He shook his head.

“First of all, I’m better than _all_ of those sponge-brained quacks put together. And second, you’re gonna be working with me on this. 100%. Right?”

“Damn right.”

_Whir…!_

Bucky stood up, smiling, as Rocket scooped up the gizmo. It was time for their last stop.

They boarded an elevator to the basement level of a storage facility. The kind anyone could rent space in and anyone could access… so long as they had a pass code.

Bucky didn’t have a pass code. Neither did Rocket. They didn’t need one. Rocket hacked the system while Bucky lounged against the wall, dizzy from the night’s revelations.

“Too slow,” he moaned impatiently, toying with Rocket.

“You punch your way in, you set off the alarms, bright eyes.”

Bucky shrugged. “Alarms are fun. Good for spicing things up.”

Rocket grinned up at him. Wickedly. “I’m gonna tell Quill you said that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You gotta take the fun outta everything.”

“I do not!” Rocket hissed. “That’s Gamora’s schtick. Not mine.”

“OK, party pooper.”

“Grraagh.” Rocket hit the enter key and the doors slid open. “Stop smiling.”

“Give me a reason.”

“It’s distracting.”

“That’s what’s called an incentive.”

“Are you asking me to punch you?”

“Am I really not being clear about what I want you to do to me?”

Rocket spun around and ran his paw up the inside of Bucky’s thigh again only… only this time he didn’t stop until he had nowhere to go. His thumb rubbed back and forth once, twice, a third time and Bucky was feeling a little light-headed again, jaw hanging loose and eyelids drooping with throbbing lethargy--

The slam of a door. Another customer in the labyrinthine space. Somewhere.

Rocket stepped back. “We’ll finish this discussion later.”

Earlier aboard the _Milano,_ Bucky might have pretended not to know a promise when he heard one, but he did. Oh, he definitely heard one.

They hurried to the final target. It was time for the kickoff:

At this precise moment, from the centrally-located public restroom, Groot was “branching out” through the air vents of a bathroom stall, waiting for Quill to remotely pilot the little robot and hover it in optimal position before turning on its solar energy output. Groot would be able to sense its location and weave a net of vines virtually blindfolded.

When the four (previously deposited) payloads were activated, power would be rerouted around the security system hardware, which would fall straight down, but Groot’s efforts would ensure that it didn’t strike the pressure sensor underneath. With the system thus disabled, all of the magnetic locks (not just on the vault door but also on the deposit boxes) would die a silent death, and the Priory’s main computer would be fooled into thinking everything was status quo, which meant that Outpost 9’s emergency lockdown procedures wouldn’t be triggered.

After Quill stopped in the restroom and got the green light from Groot, he’d lose the robot and its remote, enter the bank, scan for the tome, and scoop it up with no one the wiser.

“That panel,” Rocket indicated, pointing, and Bucky suddenly understood why Rocket had given him his new arm before this mission. The sheet of metal was several times thicker than the maintenance shed wall he’d peeled open. No way could Bucky have managed this with the Ravager-made prosthetic, but with Rocket’s--

“Piece of cake,” he murmured and carefully pried it up, bending both the panel and the wall under it.

Rocket glanced around, keeping watch, until Bucky grunted, and then those quick fingers stuffed the robot through the narrow gap.

“Be gone. Be awesome,” Rocket bon-voyaged it.

Bucky slowly released the panel. Of course it didn’t sit flush against the dented wall, but hopefully no one would notice the damage until they were too long gone to be considered suspects.

“Buy you a drink?” Bucky offered as they swaggered toward the exit.

Rocket tilted his head to the side on a considering hum. “Just how disappointed would you be if I wanted to, uh… check out the view from your porthole instead?”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed in a mockery of suspicion. “You’re trying to be smooth, aren’t you?”

“I’m not ‘trying’ anything. I am definitely--”

“The view from my porthole?” he echoed on a sputter of laughter.

“See? This is how smooth I am. You can’t even handle it.”

“Hah. You can’t wait for me to handle you.” Bucky smirked. “See? _That’s_ how it’s done.”

Rocket shook his head on a tortured whine, pressing his fists against his forehead. “Damn it. I hate how both you and Quill can do that--that wordy play stuff. It’s a humie thing, ain’t it?”

“You interested in humie things?” Bucky asked. The elevator door sensed their approach and obligingly opened. He stepped in and lounged against the back wall, lazily bracing himself against the handrail.

To his credit, Rocket only hesitated the briefest of moments before he leaped in and punched the button for the ground floor. “You’re trying to trick me.”

Bucky sobered. “No, I’m trying to show you a good time. I am flirting with you,” he explained because, good God, what if Rocket really didn’t know? “Because I like you and it makes me feel good to get attention from you. Sound familiar?”

“Pshaw, no! When did I ever--?”

“In the bar. About, oh, an hour ago.” Bucky didn’t have a watch, but he could still sense the passage of time just fine. “There were five witnesses? People that we have to put up with every day?”

“Not if we lock ‘em in their cabins,” Rocket muttered as he studied the floor of the elevator, wiggling his toes.

Bucky was mystified. How was this bashful creature the same animal that had been mauling him on rooftops?

Bucky reached out and nudged Rocket’s chin up, silently asking Rocket to stop avoiding him.

The elevator began to slow and gravity pulled deep in Bucky’s belly.

Rocket confessed, “I like it when you pay attention to me, too,” and Bucky’s heart tumbled into a pair of liquid brown eyes.

“Then I’m not gonna hold back,” Bucky murmured as the doors whispered open. Straightening, he gave Rocket a wink. “So I hear you wanna see the view from my porthole.”

Rocket groaned, but he let Bucky hold the door for him, so clearly he wasn’t too offended. Bucky hadn’t known him long, but he _knew_ that if Rocket took offense, everyone in the blast radius would be hearing about it.

They meandered back toward the dock, Rocket’s paw riding the back of Bucky’s thigh. Bucky was careful not to let them cross paths with the other team members. Any obvious communication at this point could draw attention. So when Bucky glimpsed Quill strolling down the street with purpose toward the Priory, Bucky nudged Rocket toward a large, open window through which a throng of spacefarers with more money than sense were betting on some sort of alien rodent race.

Bucky settled in, caging Rocket between his arms and holding position; Mantis was now hovering “indecisively” down the street from the Priory. She certainly looked like a lost tourist to Bucky. But then, she was pretty good at seeming helpless when she was far, far from it. The Priory guards wouldn’t know what hit them.

“Drax really knows how to pick a winner,” Rocket remarked, staring at the rat race.

Bucky gently flicked Rocket’s ear. “And you don’t?”

“Huh?”

Oh, man. It was ridiculous that Bucky was going to be the one to teach Rocket the finer points of wordplay and flirting. “You didn’t pick a winner tonight?” Bucky’s brows hiked up as he waited for it to click. When Rocket continued just looking at him, Bucky pointed to himself in mute explanation.

Rocket snickered. “Well, I guess that all depends on your porthole.”

That earned Rocket a belly laugh. Bucky’s first in years.

The dock was only a short stroll away, which was good because, with Quill’s entrance to the Priory, the countdown had begun.

“Here,” Rocket said quietly, passing a pair of battered-looking discs to Bucky. “Put one on each of the docking clamp power relays.”

Rocket pointed to the pair of small, grimy electrical boxes, one on each side of the clamp anchoring the _Milano_ to the dock.

“You got it,” Bucky replied, moving with casual confidence as if he not only knew what he was doing, but that he was supposed to be doing what he was doing. The key to any successful act of sabotage.

Rocket was inputting the hull hatch code when a bay access door (the same one Bucky and Rocket had just used) swished open and two figures in crisp security uniforms entered, backlit by the blinking lights of Outpost 9’s main street.

Bucky kept his head down, snapping the first disc in place with a tiny, magnetic _thud!_

Another door opened two berths down from the first. And then a third door opened two berths up. Six security officers in total. All armed and heading right for the _Milano._

Bucky got up and sauntered over to the second junction box.

Rocket had noticed the new arrivals, too: “You want something with a kick?” he called out as the hull door unsealed with a sigh.

“Absolutely,” Bucky answered. He went back down on one knee, reached under the pedestrian platform, and felt the disc connect. “Especially if it’s got your stamp of approval on it.”

“Oh, yeah. All over it,” Rocket confirmed.

Bucky stood, brushing his right hand on his pant leg, and gave the ship a careful once-over. Out of the corner of his eye, he counted four… no, six figures in station maintenance uniforms abandon their work and fall in step with the approaching security officers.

Two against twelve with their planned escape vehicle in the line of fire. _Shit._

“Hey, tiger,” Bucky called as he strolled up the gang plank and toward the open hatch. “Just how anxious are you for that view I promised you?”

“You got a better idea there, cutie?” Rocket’s nimble fingers flicked open the latch on the weapon’s cabinet.

A man’s shout: “You, there! Berth 10-Beta! Halt!”

Bucky smiled. “Best outta twelve?”

Rocket tossed him a blaster, grabbed one for himself, and grinned. “You’re on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As smart as Rocket is, I don’t really think he gets the concept of flirting (or hooking up). He focuses his energies on other things, like making bombs out of spare parts and getting a rise out of Quill and flying space ships. (More on Rocket’s lack of game in his upcoming POV chapter.)
> 
> Meanwhile, Bucky is starting to relax and remember what it felt like to be charming and he misses that. Rocket being 100% receptive to his attention is really building his confidence (not just in dating, but in general).


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Auditory hallucinations in bold, italicized text.  
> (It’s time to meet the Winter Soldier.)

When the shooting started, both Bucky and Rocket were armed and ready. Unfortunately, the _Milano_ was not.

Rocket’s wristwatch beeped shrilly in between laser blasts: _GUARDIANS INBOUND_

“Crap!” he barked, and that seemed to be the signal that brought even more security officers pouring into the docking bay.

“Fire it up!” Bucky ordered. They had to get mobile. Docking clamp relay sabotage would only go so far; it wouldn’t take the Priory long to initiate the lockdown procedures manually.

Rocket snarled in aggravation, but he dashed into the ship to light up the engines.

Bucky knew that Quill was armed. Both Gamora and Drax were weapons in and of themselves. Groot and Mantis were no fainting violets, either. They’d be clearing a path through the streets if necessary. Bucky just needed to keep these assholes from putting too many scorch marks on the ship.

The engines sputtered, rumbled, and then roared. In the docking bay, bodies were falling, limbs twitching with the energy blast from each shot. Some struggled to get back on their feet. Others stayed down.

“Comin’ atcha!” Rocket hollered, diving out onto the retractable walkway and rapid-firing laser pulses with a battle cry.

Side by side they returned fire. Rocket wantonly peppering the docking bay and Bucky sighting each target as they popped up from behind stacks and clusters of cargo containers, one by one.

And then--

At the edge of his vision, Bucky glimpsed a distant docking bay door opening and, in that barest moment of distraction, speculated that perhaps Quill was returning--

_Zzzzzzt!_

Blue. Pain. Bursting light. Sharp agony. Crashing, crumpling, crumbling--

“Bucky!” A male voice.

A cry.

So many cries. The woman in the car. Maria Stark--

**_**“Mission report: December 16, 1991.”** _ **

“BUCKY!” The voice again. A shout.

His knees throbbed. Metal grating under him.

**_**“Longing--Rusted--Seventeen--Daybreak--Furnace--”** _ **

Air. He needed air! He needed--!

**_**“Nine--Benign--Homecoming--One--Freight car.”** _ **

There was a gun in his hands.

**_**“Good morning, Soldier.”** _ **

The Winter Soldier stood.

Took aim.

Fired--fired--fired with each step as he approached the enemy with purpose. His only purpose was the mission. These were incidentals. Collateral. Obstacles to be removed from his path.

“Bucky! What the hell, man! It’s-- _Jesus!_ It’s Quill! STOP FIRING!!”

A face in his cross-hairs. Eyes wide with incredulity and fear. The Winter Soldier’s finger on the trigger--

A blur -- a large, dusky body flying out at him from behind the scattered containers. The left fist of the Winter Soldier crashed into that roaring face. Down he went.

Now scanning -- target lost.

A shot from behind zoomed past his shoulder. He spun--

A woman leaped over the stirring form of the previous attacker.

“Mission report!” she demanded, rifle held at ease. “Mission report now, soldier!”

He lowered the weapon in his hands. “Mission,” he said, “ongoing.” And then he obediently approached, paused, waited.

“Discontinue mission.”

_**INVALID COMMAND.** _

_**ELIMINATE OBTRUSION.** _

His hand shot out, clamped down on the impostor’s throat. Her eyes darted over his shoulder, dark green lips formed the word “no!”

The Winter Soldier swung the rifle around. A waif-like figure. Large dark eyes. Slender hand extended. Pleading. “Bucky…”

He fired. Direct hit. Center mass. The crackle of energy, blue and popping--

**_**“Wipe him. Start over.”** _ **

Screaming. SCREAMING. SCREAMING!!

A sudden sting. Claws digging into his waist, back, shoulder--

“GAMORA, NO!! I CAN REACH ’IM!!”

The woman still in his grasp, a moment away from unconsciousness. She’d pulled a knife from her belt, but hesitated to use it. He threw her into the man struggling to get to his feet. The other attacker still clinging to his back bellowed--

“BUCKY!! KNOCK IT OFF!! WE AIN’T THE ENEMY, DAMN IT!!”

The Winter Soldier reached up. Grabbed fur and skin and bone and peeled the creature off. Mechanical fingers tensed, squeezed.

A sharp twist of force to his other arm as a shot hit the rifle and spun it out of his numbed, flesh-and-blood hand. The weapon fell. Clattered. The small, squirming body in his gasp was tossed aside, out into the open air of the docking bay.

The Winter Soldier glanced down at the dropped rifle. The targeting array had been destroyed. He located a new weapon lying abandoned nearby, moved toward it, flexed his right hand as the feeling returned--

The fallen man and the woman he’d choked both pounced upon him.

He pounded back with fists. Elbows. Knees.

The man fell back, dropped hard, eyes open, dazed.

A battle cry from the woman. He caught her wrist and spun her around. Knife blades sliced at his arms before clattering to the ground.

_**DAMAGE TAKEN: NEGLIGIBLE.** _

Mechanical grasp on her chin, the other on her shoulder, a twist away from snapping her neck--

The shrill power-up of a laser rifle at full charge: his immediate priorities resorted. The target faced him, panting and panicked.

“LET GAMORA GO.”

The woman regrouped and struck, a fist tangling in the Winter Soldier’s hair. Yanking hard -- sharp enough to lift the skin from his skull -- but the Winter Soldier only saw the target. And the laser rifle.

He pushed the woman forward, a shield.

The Winter Soldier’s hand clamped down on the bulky gun in the target’s hands, gripped the barrel, tore it from a white-knuckled grasp, and swung the entire thing at the man’s head.

Direct hit.

The target spun away, lost his balance. Hauled the woman with him.

The weapon flipped, righted, settled in the Winter Soldier’s hands.

Finger on the trigger.

The mark stumbled back, bent at the waist, empty hands lifted in surrender. The woman drew a second knife and assumed a fighting stance, a breath away from launching another assault.

And then a tug on the Winter Soldier’s ankles.

He looked down. The woman grabbed for the rifle. The shot went wide as the Winter Soldier was dragged off of his feet. Across the filthy floor of the dock. Over the edge. He grabbed the railing.

The metal bent. Squealed. Snapped.

He was pulled into thin air. Gloom and speeding wind. His arms reaching for any handhold and then--

_CRASH!_

Star bursts of white. Red. Pain.

His entire body merged with icy metal.

Cold--hissing gas--frozen--

**_**“Mission report.”** _ **

And finally: darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

And then, a single breath.

The porthole was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, but it was wrong. Wrong angle. Wrong size. Wrong color. Pitch black. Hydra’s porthole wasn’t this dark beyond. Where were the monitors, the ghostly figures in lab coats, the apparatus frozen in predatory pose? He squinted hard, blinked, stared… and tiny points of white light stared back.

He drew in a shaky breath. Flexed his hands into fists. He was being held down. Restrained flat on his back and that was wrong, too. Always standing or suspended or sitting. Never just lying down. He hadn’t been permitted to lie down for a very long time.

Faint light revealed that he was on a bunk. In a bare room. Shelving hardware ribbed the walls.

He turned his aching, throbbing, howling head away from the porthole and squinted in the soft glow of lighted dandelion seeds drifting up, illuminating the small room. A face that someone had carved into the trunk of a tree loomed over him. It hummed an inquiring note and, suddenly, his stomach lurched. Churned.

“Oh, God,” he sobbed. “Who did I hurt, Groot?”

Groot smiled and the viney restraints on Bucky’s arms and legs retreated. Groot stood and waited for Bucky to swing his feet over the edge of the bunk. His entire body ached. Dull pain radiated along his spine. Whatever he’d hit had been hard. Hard enough to jar him back to himself. Hard enough to loosen the Winter Soldier’s hold and scatter Hydra’s shadow. For the time being.

Groot held out a hand. Bucky stared at it for a long moment before clasping it and hauling himself to his feet.

“Was it your turn,” he asked Groot, “or did you draw the short straw this time?”

Groot lifted a finger to his mouth, gesturing for silence, and then creakily shifted toward the door. As he moved, an indistinct shout blasted from the deck above. Rocket. And he sounded incandescent with rage.

The door latch released. The door swung open and the tail end of the outburst resolved into actual words: “--HIM GOT IT!”

Total silence pulsated in the wake.

With a centering breath and one hand on the corridor wall, Bucky made his way slowly (very slowly) toward the galley. Hushed words drifted downward.

“That’s not what we’re saying, Rocket,” Gamora soothed despite her hoarse voice. “None of us would do that.”

“Yeah,” Quill agreed, his words slurring slightly, “y’know, for a while there after he showed up, it was like you were a regular at Assholes Anonymous -- and it was actually working for you--”

“Gee, thanks,” Rocket said glumly.

“These past few days, though, you’ve been a total dick to everyone _but_ him.”

“Do you have a point?”

“My point,” Quill continued, “is that you wouldn’t want to be with him this badly if you didn’t want to be with him at all.”

“Before my Ovette,” Drax grated out slowly, as though it hurt to breathe, “I felt no urge to procreate.”

“Ugh,” Quill moaned. “Right. Nether regions -- engorged. I’ll never forget.”

Very quietly, Rocket confessed, “I don’t know what to do.”

“You should tell Bucky what you are feeling, Rocket,” Mantis encouraged. “In my time here with all of you, I have learned that a burden shared makes no one weak. It makes all of us stronger.”

And on that note, Bucky’s boot struck the lowest rung of the ladder. In the galley above, everyone went silent. Breath held.

Bucky pulled himself up to the middle deck and forced his gaze up off of the floor.

Quill’s face (the whole right side) was little more than a series of red, oozing welts. Skinned and shiny.

Gamora’s neck was nearly black with another hand-shaped bruise. Swollen.

Drax’s torso moved with cautious breaths. He blinked rapidly every few seconds, clearing his vision.

Mantis braced herself in her chair like a deer caught in headlights, but she appeared untouched.

Rocket slumped in his seat, expression pinched.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky began, trying to grasp onto the gauze-thin impressions that flitted up and out of his memory. But the harder he tried to recall what he’d done, the faster they faded. “I know that’s not… enough.” No apology could ever be enough.

“Do you remember what happened?” Gamora asked.

He shook his head, lips pursing. “I know I killed people…”

“Nobody we weren’t killing right along with you,” Quill reassured him.

Gamora was the one who explained: “You were hit. By an energy blast.”

“Scrambled your brain,” Quill elaborated unnecessarily. “Didn’t know that was a possibility, huh?”

The question was friendly, almost an invitation for Bucky to share in the joke. But this was no joke. He’d hurt these people. His friends. People who had only ever tried to help him.

“It could have been worse,” Gamora said.

The very thought of what “worse” would look like tore Bucky to pieces inside. The broken. The lost. The dead. _No._ He said, “Can you take me back to Earth?”

Gamora froze.

Quill’s chin jerked.

Drax frowned.

Mantis bit her lip.

Groot’s hand landed on Bucky’s shoulder.

“What the hell for?” Rocket shouted. “So those lunatic humies can get their hands on you?”

Bucky shook his head. Capitulated. “We tried. You all tried. It didn’t work. It’s time for me to go back.”

“Hey!” Quill yelled. “We tried one thing. One! There could be half a dozen ways to break your conditioning. We just need _time.”_

“Time’s up,” Bucky said.

Rocket shot out of his chair and, standing on the seat, jabbed a finger at Bucky. “The hell it is! We are not giving up. Do you hear me? None of us are giving up, including you!” His narrow shoulders heaved. His paws curled into fists. 

Bucky looked from one drained, _determined_ face to another. One against six. Not the best odds. And Bucky was still shaky. Too exhausted for another fight.

_“It always ends in a fight.”_

Throat tight, he acknowledged their collective position with a nod and then reached for the ladder. Bucky pulled himself into the cockpit. He was tempted to take the pilot’s seat, but in the end simply fell into the navigator’s chair. His head tilted back on a sigh and he stared up through the windows.

According to the instruments he’d glanced at in passing, the ship was moving, but the stars were stationary.

He closed his eyes.

From below, he heard Quill say, “Well, he stopped arguing. That’s a good sign, right?”

Drax wheezed, “A man who has--nothing left to say--is a man who has reached--a decision. Bucky will--leave us. Maybe not tomorrow--but soon.”

There was a loud clatter that Bucky couldn’t immediately identify, like a stool being hurled against a wall.

“Rocket!” Mantis exclaimed.

Gamora observed, “If you were aiming for a particular target, you missed.”

“Dude! What did that chair -- or my _ship!_ \-- do to you?”

Drax noted earnestly, “You feel better--yes?”

A frustrated snarl and stomping footsteps approached the cockpit ladder. A moment (just long enough for a deep breath) passed. A sound (the brush of fur and the click of claws on metal) told him Rocket was climbing up.

“Bucky.”

Wearily, he opened his eyes and looked at Rocket, who wasn’t sitting in the copilot’s seat, as per usual. He was standing in front of Bucky… between Bucky and the memory of a view of the planet Earth.

Bucky said, “I scare Mantis. I can see it.”

“Scaring people is a very transferable skill. It’ll get us even more clients.”

Bucky’s lips twitched at Rocket’s matter-of-fact tone and indifferent shrug.

“If you go back,” Rocket said after a very long moment of silence, “are they gonna put you on ice again? I mean, what good is that gonna do?”

“It’s not a bad place for me to be.”

Rocket shook his head. “No, man, no. That is not a solution. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. We gotta deal with this.”

“Me going back to Earth is how we deal with this.”

“Is that what you really want?”

“You’ve seen what I can do.”

“Oh, boy, have I ever. And I gotta say, I was kinda impressed. By all that. Not by this. This is you being a dumbass. And running away. Is that how things get done where you come from? How the hell did you Terrans ever get your butts into space with an attitude like that?” He rocked back on his heels, arms crossed under the metal plates along his collarbone. Bones that Bucky could suddenly remember feeling in his grasp, the barest effort away from being snapped.

He drew in a shaky breath.

Rocket nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, suck it up, Bucky-boy.”

“You some kind of expert?”

“Nah, I’m just telling you what I want.”

“Only an idiot would want me to hang around after this.”

“Well. Then I guess we’re all a bunch of idiots.” Rocket rubbed his paws over his face, slowly at first and then ending with a brisk scrubbing. Ruffled and resolute, he declared, “But if you’re dead set on going back to Terra -- excuse me, _Earth_ \-- then I’m going with you.”

Bucky gaped, terror seeping into his veins. “No. You can’t.”

“The hell I can’t.”

“What did I do to you?” Rocket’s expression locked up and Bucky pressed, “Tell me, Rocket, or I’ll start filling in the blanks myself. One way or the other, I need to know.”

“You picked me up and pitched me into the bay.” Before Bucky could imagine how far Rocket must have fallen in that cavernous space and how brain-smashingly hard the impact had to have been, Rocket told Bucky, “Groot grabbed me before I hit.”

Bucky exhaled. “You guys weren’t kidding about that liquor.”

“Super speeds him.”

Bucky reached up to rub the fading goose egg on the back of his skull as a faint impression crept over him: vines whipping around his ankles tight and tugging hard. “Yeah. Were you injured?”

Rocket sighed. “A couple of hairline fractures. The _Milano’s_ first-aid pod already took care of it.”

“Shit.” Bucky lurched forward, his elbows planting on his knees and both hands digging into his hair, fingers pulling at his scalp and-- _Gamora’s hand fisting hard in his hair, her life held in his hands--_

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut.

Rocket ordered flatly, “Don’t you dare apologize.”

Somehow, Bucky refrained. “How long ‘til we reach the client and deliver the Tome of Ra? I assume Quill got it.”

“Oh, yeah, he got it.” Rocket leaned over and, without touching Bucky, brought up their current course on the navigation screen. “Got out undetected, too. That had to be a first.”

“So why were there security officers at the docking bay. What did they want?”

“Besides to shoot first and give a shit later? Beats me.” He gestured for Bucky to take a look at the screen.

When he did, he blinked. “Two hundred and eleven jumps left?”

“We did a set of forty-two and thirty-nine already.” Rocket checked his watch. “About an hour left on this leg before we get to the next jump point.”

Bucky looked at Rocket. An hour. Oh what Bucky could have done with that hour. If he’d deserved it. But he didn’t. And that was that. So, instead, he summoned up one of the thousands of questions he still had about space travel. If he didn’t ask now, well… he might not get another chance.

“How can signals reach us so quickly? The client sent that message yesterday, right?”

Rocket propped an elbow against the copilot’s seat. “Communication craft. Powered by robots. They constantly move in and out of hyper space. If one craft picks up a message, pretty much all of them get a copy of it within a couple of hours. Transmits to every corner of the galaxy.”

“That can’t be secure.”

“It is. Usually. Quantum coding. It’s--well, that’s a lecture that’ll have to wait for a really good cup of something.”

“Caffeine or alcohol?”

“Eh. Take your pick.”

Bucky thought of another question: “Who’s in charge of the communications network?”

“The Lem, mostly.” At Bucky’s blank look, Rocket mused, “And you’ve got no idea who the Lem are.”

“Aside from our client being one? None.” He figured he might as well start with the basics: “What do they look like?”

Rocket considered that for a solid second before he held up a finger and hollered down into the galley, “HEY QUILL! DO THE LEM LOOK LIKE ANYTHING ON TERRA? BUCKY WANTS TO KNOW.”

And, a second later, Quill belted back with “GIANT LOBSTER!”

“Hm,” Rocket hummed, straightening. “There you go. The Lem look like giant blobsirs.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at Rocket’s shit-eating-grin. “I’ve got to ask: what do you got against new words? I know your hearing is just fine.”

“It is. But Drax’s? Total crap. Now there’s a guy who’s wrong with _conviction._ Running joke.”

“Thanks for sharing,” Bucky told him, heart warming and heat building in his eyes. It was the little things that had come to mean so much to him here on the _Milano._ Moments and memories to distract him from those lost.

It was nice to have one more to take back with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drax’s hearing problem (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2) -- it’s not really a hearing problem, it’s a listening problem: “anulax” vs. “harbulary” batteries *facepalm*
> 
> Lem -- I realize the Lem don’t look like giant lobster. Let’s assume that Quill’s on medication that is making him see pink elephants right now. (^_~)


	14. Chapter 14

They chatted about this and that, odds and ends, treading water amid the tension in the cockpit until it was time for the next series of jumps. Everyone strapped in and Quill ordered: “Clench those butt cheeks!”

Forty-five jumps. Bucky counted them off, somehow keeping his slerpy stomach from rolling over and splashing its contents onto the floor.

After that, they had a four-hour break.

Quill announced his intention to crash and burn.

Drax resigned himself to a healing session in the first-aid pod.

Gamora and Rocket stayed in the cockpit.

Groot, Mantis, and Bucky relocated themselves to the galley to stretch their legs and try to feel normal again. In aid of that, Bucky offered to make some Berhert root tea. He knew it was Groot’s new favorite and Bucky wanted to express his appreciation for Groot’s spectacular MVP performance back at Outpost 9.

He washed and chopped up the roots while the water boiled. This was like no tea Bucky had ever had, but it was growing on him. No pun intended.

“How’re you doing, ladybug?” he asked Mantis.

She shrugged, and that caught Bucky’s attention because she’d never been shy about expressing her feelings. It was the one area where her confidence was unshakable.

Bucky set down the chopping knife and said, “I’m sorry. I know I hurt you.”

 _“You_ did not hurt me, Bucky.”

And that was the crux of the matter: if Bucky had been in control, none of his friends would have gotten injured. He blinked as, suddenly, a flash of blue energy erupted from his memory. “You were shot.”

Reluctantly, she nodded. Bucky watched her wrap her arms around her middle and he just couldn’t stand it anymore. He hated what Hydra had put inside of him. He hated being terrified of what he might do. He hated the agony that pinched Mantis’ lovely face and weighed down her antennae.

But he didn’t hate Mantis. Of course not. He wanted to keep her safe. She was his friend and, regardless of what happened on Earth, Bucky didn’t want her last impression of him to be filled with pain.

He reached out slowly and, when she didn’t back up, he touched her arm. He waited for that inevitable moment of dawning comprehension, but it didn’t happen. She didn’t smile. Didn’t pat his hand. She crumpled against his chest on a sob.

“I am so sorry!” she wailed into his shirt. “I cannot feel what you feel.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable--”

“No. No, no, no. I cannot _feel,”_ she whimpered. “My empathic abilities. It is all gone.”

Gone. Because of the shot she’d taken. If a laser could cross Bucky’s wires so effectively, then why not short out Mantis altogether? “God,” he breathed, rubbing her back, trying to comfort her… and himself. “I’m so sorry.”

How stupid he’d been to think she’d come out of the fight unscathed. Of course she hadn’t. She’d been hurt worse than anyone.

It wasn’t like Bucky needed another reason to go back to Earth and face the music, but this here was the final nail in the coffin. He shook his head, recalling a single self-depreciating thought from a week ago: he’d wondered how long it would take him to destroy the lives of the people in space.

Not long, as it turned out. Not long at all.

A sound intruded: the unmistakable click-and-shush of Rocket making his way down the cockpit ladder.

Bucky didn’t look away from the wall he was glaring at, not even when Rocket cleared his throat.

“We should take a look at that arm,” he said and, when Mantis backed up, Bucky’s arms dropped.

“Sure,” he agreed neutrally because what point was there in getting angry? It was pretty clear that Rocket had known about this. Everyone else, too, probably. And they’d chosen not to tell him. Or not tell him yet. Or let Mantis be the one to bring it up. Whatever. Bucky was too tired and heartsick to make a fuss.

Rocket ushered him down to his workroom. Bucky sat on the stool. Rocket turned on the workbench light and began inspecting his left arm. Bucky didn’t say anything.

“It’ll come back,” Rocket bit out, the words scraping against the numbness that was creeping over Bucky. “She just needs rest. Or another zap at reverse charge.”

The last option was clearly meant to be provoking, but Bucky didn’t rise to the bait. “Has something like this ever happened to her before?”

Bucky waited, counting off the seconds in his head. Rocket didn’t answer and that was answer enough.

The paws on his arm poked the joints and joinings, moving up from knuckles to wrist to elbow to shoulder. And then a touch on his skin.

Bucky shivered, tensed, shifted to pulled away--

“I don’t feel anything around mine,” Rocket said and Bucky paused. “The hardware in my back. I can almost forget it’s there. Until something touches it. And then it’s like a button or a buckle, but that’s all.”

Bucky’s gaze dropped to the small plates at the base of Rocket’s neck. “And these?”

“Oh, I feel those. Every time I move. Or when it gets really cold.” Rocket’s gaze slid up and over to Bucky’s long hair. Gently, he picked at a snarl with his claws. “You’ve got a frickin’ Orloni nest up in here. How can you live like this, man?”

“Caveman thing,” Bucky muttered, amused in spite of himself.

“Yeah… you’re not really acting the part, though.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Hmm. I distinctly remember you being…”

_Different. Confident. Interested._

Rocket sighed. A small hand -- the one not buried in Bucky’s tangled hair -- pressed against the center of his chest. “It feels empty, right? Only, it ain’t.”

Bucky looked into Rocket’s eyes.

“Oh, yeah. I’m an expert on this, too.”

Bucky didn’t ask, but Rocket told him anyway, “Yondu clued me in, the Ravager captain who raised Quill. It takes an asshole to know an asshole, I guess.”

Bucky arched a brow and Rocket rolled his eyes at himself. “I’m not calling you an asshole.”

“The word you used was ‘dumbass.’”

“Yeah, and that’s still true.” Rocket went back to combing through Bucky’s hair -- with both paws now. Thorough and methodical. “I lost a friend that day. At the time, I wasn’t so sure Quill was gonna make it, but Yondu was looking out for him, and it was Yondu we lost instead. I didn’t realize it until later that he was my friend, too. Or, he could’ve been.” Rocket tugged gently at Bucky’s nape. “With a little more time.”

Exhaling in surrender, Bucky let Rocket press their foreheads together. He reached up with his right hand and rested it against the back of Rocket’s waist. “Any hardware here?”

“Nope. That’s all me.”

They stayed like that until the _Milano_ was within range of the next series of jump points and Gamora knocked on the door.

Rocket didn’t answer right away. He told Bucky, “Life is crap -- you know it and I know it -- but you’re a frickin’ warrior. We can beat this!”

Then he pulled back and swung open the door. Standing beside her in the hall was a just-showered and mostly-healed Drax. Gamora nodded for them to follow and, when Rocket clambered up the ladder to the galley (and the cockpit above that), Drax gripped Bucky’s shoulder. Hard.

“Rocket is correct,” Drax said. “You do us all a disservice in letting fear bind your heart. But most especially, you disappoint him.”

Bucky blinked, confused and fighting a headache. “What the hell. Weren’t you warning me away just yesterday?”

“My only concern in that matter is for Rocket’s happiness and well-being. The miserable, hairy vermin deserves both.” Drax rocked Bucky by his shoulder. “And you are our family. We have fought alongside one another; we have quarreled; we have traded jests and drunk revolting liquor. Yes, we have also hurt one another, but if you leave us now, those wounds will never heal.” Drax let his hand drop. “You may be as pitiful as Quill when it comes to matters of the heart, but I would still call you ‘brother.’”

High praise, indeed. With a shake of his head, Bucky pulled himself up into the cockpit and strapped in.

There was no point in anyone trying to get any rest for hours after that. They only had short windows before they were off again. But Quill spent almost every moment between jumps glued to the comms system, watching the screen.

They finally had a long stretch of downtime just before the final series of twenty jumps -- “So that we can all look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we deliver the tome to the client,” Quill explained while Groot (under the occasionally wandering supervision of Drax) dredged up something for everyone to eat. Which they did. In silence.

Bucky was in the middle of cleanup when the chime of an incoming call rattled through the _Milano._

Quill practically dived to answer it before Gamora could redirect it through the system’s various screening programs to vet the source.

“Hey! You got my message!” Quill chirped.

Bucky idly glanced over his shoulder (out of boredom more than anything else) and froze at the sight of a familiar face on the screen.

“Peter Quill? It’s good to finally meet you. I’m Steve Rogers.”

White noise. Blood rushing in Bucky’s ears. He gawped as, one by one, the seats around the table were retaken. All except Bucky’s.

Gamora beckoned him with a wave.

Bucky rinsed his sudsy hands and squeezed a towel in his fists to dry off while the introductions were doled out.

“Thanks for pinch hitting on this,” Steve told Quill. “I know Stark contacted you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s easier to just do what he says than have to keep dodging his calls,” Quill downplayed. “The man’s a mosquito with West Nile.”

“I’m going to tell him you said so.”

“Do that,” Quill brazenly encouraged just as Bucky moved into view of the camera and his rear landed in the last empty seat between Groot and Rocket.

Steve sent a smile his way and, by now, Bucky was sure that this was real and Steve really was calling. Bucky hadn’t really thought he would, but that was probably just his two years of being on the run talking. Of course Steve would call if he knew where Bucky was.

“Hey, Buck. It’s great to see you.”

“Yeah. Face to face this time.” The phone booth back on whatever resort station that had been the stop between the “skip” and the “jump” had been audio only. “What’s going on, Cap?”

“Wait,” Rocket interrupted, bristling. “’Cap’ as in _you’re_ Captain Asshat America? The guy who dropped Bucky from a train?”

Steve’s expression froze.

Rocket kept on snarling. “Your arm-span is a frickin’ light year across. How could you screw that up!?”

“There were mitigating circumstances.”

“Is that so.” He accused, “Like your personal motto: any man who falls behind gets left behind!”

“Rocket!” Gamora barked.

“Dude,” Quill muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “this is so not the time for these two to sort out their issues.”

Arms akimbo, Rocket challenged, “When will it be the time, eh?”

Steve cleared his throat. “No, Rocky’s right--”

“It’s ROCKET.”

“I’m sorry.” And he really looked it, too. “Rocket is right. If Bucky and I could have a word in private?”

Bucky huffed. “That’s gonna be a tall order on this end.”

“What? Pfft, naw,” Quill protested with nonchalance. “We’ll just… go up to the cockpit.”

Bucky gave him a flat look. “Where you’ll be able to hear everything that gets said down here.”

“Not if we play a fun game of ‘I Spy.’”

Gamora looked ready to balk. “‘Eyes pie?’”

“Yeah! It’s great. You guys are gonna love it. C’mon, let’s give the BFFs some alone time.”

“I know what that means,” Mantis told Steve. “Boy friends fun!”

Steve visibly suppressed a snort.

Quill wailed, “No! Best friends forever! Damn it, don’t you guys listen when I tell you about Earth stuff?”

“No,” Drax grunted.

Rocket paused beside Bucky’s chair. He lifted his paw like he was about to lay it on Bucky’s arm -- offer a reassuring squeeze, maybe -- but he didn’t. Instead, he aimed a menacing grin at the screen and then headed for the cockpit ladder, ringed tail swishing as he mounted each rung.

“They still there?”

 _Always,_ Bucky didn’t say. “No.”

“I’m not going to ask if you really think I just left you behind, because that’s exactly what I did. We should’ve scoured that ravine until we found a body and, not finding one, we should’ve kept on looking. I’m sorry.”

“I know.” But being sorry had never done Bucky much good.

Steve shook his head, bewildered and helpless. “You were always such a good brother to me, Buck. I don’t know why I was so lousy at being yours.”

“You weren’t lousy at it,” Bucky argued. “I was just too bull-headed to let you get much practice. I’m sorry for that.”

Steve nodded. Floundered. Recovered. “The Guardians -- they all seem like a good bunch. You look happy.”

“They’re great.” And that was Bucky’s limit; he was done talking about feelings. “I’d better send them back in. I hear an argument brewing,” he lied.

Steve didn’t call him on it.

Bucky got up, crossed to the ladder, and hollered for everyone to come back down.

Drax descended first, grumbling, “Ridiculous Earther game of stating the obvious…”

Quill followed, adamantly defending the time-honored past time.

Then came Groot and Mantis. The latter asked, “I do not understand -- how was Groot supposed to take his turn? Most of the time, when he speaks, all I hear is ‘I am Groot.’” She gave him an apologetic wince and the tree in question looked very amused.

“Rocket’s doing that thing again,” Gamora muttered as she climbed down.

Mantis halted. “He is. But no one called him a triangle-faced monkey this time. Did they?”

Frowning, Bucky went up the ladder and paused at the sight of Rocket, sitting in his usual seat, licking the back of one paw and then the other before smoothing them both over his face. Grooming himself. Bucky had never seen him look so much like an actual raccoon.

Rocket looked up and froze.

“Hey, tiger. What’s up?” Bucky asked.

“Nothing.” Rocket shifted as if he might push himself out of the chair, but stopped on the edge of the seat. “Do all humies look like frickin’ Captain America there?”

“No,” Bucky answered, fighting back a tickle of humor even as his heart was breaking. Because who wouldn’t feel like a triangle-faced monkey next to the amazing Steve Rogers?

Rocket sighed out a frustrated whimper.

Bucky blurted, “There’s no one on Earth like you.”

“Of course not!” He feistily touted, “There ain’t no thing like me, except _me.”_

Which was why Bucky never would have agreed to bring Rocket to Earth with him. No way, no how. Rocket was one of a kind and Bucky was not going to get him killed.

But what Bucky said instead was “And two-time savior of the galaxy, too!”

Rocket sniffed. “Heh, let’s see your douchebag friend _‘Stove’_ top that.”

Bucky tried not to laugh, he really did.

Rocket barreled on. “And you know what? I don’t care if he apologized. I don’t care if he got down on his knees and groveled--”

“You’re gonna hold a grudge about this, aren’t you?”

“I like grudges. Grudges are _fun!_ They give me a warm, combustible feeling inside.”

The backs of Bucky’s fingers caressed their way across Rocket’s cheek until he could burrow into the soft fur below his ear. “I don’t think you really need more material for making things go _boom.”_

Rocket dismissed that with a wave of his paw. “What are you talking about? That’s what you get for the genius who already has everything. My birthday’s coming up. Hint, hint.” He winked and Bucky knew, in that moment, that he was done for. Really done for. Because he was in love with this snarling, possessive asshole who just would not give up on him.

“I’ll make a note of it,” Bucky vowed unevenly and then nodded for both of them to head back to the galley.

When they got there, everyone was quiet. Too quiet. Subdued. Bucky could guess why and took a stab at it: “Steve told you what’s waiting for me on Earth?”

“I understand that you want to face this but, Buck,” Steve urged, “this is not the time.”

He nodded even as his temper flared. “The United Nations reached a unanimous agreement?”

“...yeah.”

Bucky wracked his brain for a solution that simply did not exist. Now that Steve knew Bucky was planning to return home, Steve would be there, standing stupidly between Bucky and whatever task force had been empowered by the UN to hunt down the Winter Soldier and eliminate him for good. And Steve would die. Or end up in prison for the rest of his life. Or worse, in a laboratory. Because if Howard Stark had been able to reverse engineer Erskine’s serum once, then his son would surely be able to do it again.

So Bucky could go back to Earth, but he couldn’t accept his fate because he couldn’t dodge the unshrinking edge of Captain America’s Goddamn vibranium shield. Fine. But he couldn’t exactly toddle along after the Guardians on their next mission, either. Not so long as he was a laser-blast-to-the-head away from causing serious damage.

“Maybe I’ll find myself a nice, uninhabited planet then,” Bucky only half-joked.

“That’d be better than the alternative.” Steve glanced back over his shoulder; the sound of soft knocking filtered through. “I’ve gotta go. Call me if you need me.”

The line went dead and Rocket scoffed. “’Call me if you need me,’” he sneered. “Who does that chucklehead think he’s kidding?”

“Rocket,” Gamora warned (for the second time in under ten minutes).

Gesturing toward the blank screen, Rocket practically roared, “Obviously, Mister Captain Damn America already has a full schedule today! Maybe he can squeeze us in tomorrow!”

Bucky crouched down and placed both hands on Rocket’s heaving shoulders. “You’re about to explode.”

“Oh hell, I’m just getting warmed up!”

“Any warmer and we’ll have a supernova on our hands,” Quill opined.

“I am Groot!”

“Thank you!” Rocket shouted, spearing a hand in Groot’s direction. “He _is_ a shitty friend to Bucky!”

Firmly, Bucky said, “Steve has saved my life more than once.”

“More than once, huh? As in, you can count the number of times he was there for you? On one hand?” Rocket held up a paw and waggled his fingers. “He busted you outta that first Hydra lab so, OK, I’ll give ‘im that one. He let you beat the crap out of him until you remembered your own frickin’ name -- what a pal. He broke into your apartment and wasted time you didn’t have on _talking_ when you should’ve been _hauling ass._ He crashed your ride, fished you outta the water, and locked your arm in an industrial vise to play twenty questions. But oh, this one’s my favorite -- he hijacked a jet so you could both chase after a lunatic who ended up revealing one of your darkest secrets and making your allies _turn on you._ DOES THAT ABOUT COVER IT!?”

Bucky blinked, ears ringing.

“Yup,” Quill remarked. “Super. Nova.”

But despite the broken silence, no one moved. Rocket was panting hard and that was what clued Bucky in to the fact that he was, too. He was furious. He was in agony. And he was more certain than ever that Rocket loved him right back.

_Son of a bitch._

He rasped, “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”

“No, I won’t!” Rocket’s fist lashed out and his claws tangled in the weave of Bucky’s shirt. Bucky reacted, his left hand clamping over that small paw, but Rocket went right ahead and roared in his face: “SO GET USED TO ME HATING HIS GUTS!”

Bucky swallowed, glanced down at the stranglehold Rocket still had on him, and nodded. “OK.”

“O--OK?” Rocket checked, his ears relaxing and brows lifting.

“Yeah. You go ahead and blame ‘Stove Rockers’ all you want. I can’t stop you.”

“Damn right!”

“But,” Bucky continued, “until we can figure out a way to stop me from hurting you guys, we still have a problem. A big one.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Rocket vowed calmly, and when Bucky gently pried those claws free from his stretched-out shirt, Rocket simply gripped his hand instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “root tea” -- there’s a caffeineless tea made from burdock root that I really like, so yeah, it’s a thing.
> 
> “Orloni” (Guardians of the Galaxy) -- those creepy, jumpy, velociraptor-esque rats on alien worlds (especially Morag)
> 
> Yondu Udonta -- I really think that his “I know you, boy” lecture to Rocket (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2) would have stuck with Rocket. If for no other reason than how Udonta insists on giving his life to save Quill. Hence, wise!Rocket.
> 
> “I can only afford to lose one friend today” (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2) -- When Rocket says this, I thought he was talking about Quill (because Gamora and Drax were all, “WHERE’S QUILL?” and Rocket wouldn’t say) but in retrospect, I think it was Yondu that Rocket was talking about (whether or not he really knew it at the time) because he knew that Yondu wasn’t coming back.
> 
> washing dishes in space -- as a child of StarTrek:TNG, I know this is not a thing that happens in space. Not even if the ship has gravity and nobody is floating around. But I just really wanted some domesticity in this fic and running water is soothing.
> 
> “a mosquito with (the) West Nile (Virus)” -- this is not my original line. It comes from a coworker of a dear friend who was describing a very high-strung colleague who tended to hover (and whom no one wanted to attract the attention of).
> 
> Yes, all the Guardians read Bucky’s file (that Tony sent) and it was Very Detailed. (But I think Drax fell asleep after about the second sentence on the first page.)
> 
> “a triangle-faced monkey” -- this is from Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. Ego calls Rocket a triangle-faced monkey and Rocket kind of freaks out quietly over it.
> 
> Rocket’s grudges -- yes, as per my headcanon, Rocket LOVES holding onto grudges in general, but Rocket has a new “normal” (with the Guardians); he has a family that is always there for each other no matter their differences of opinion and now that Rocket has experienced this it is simply inconceivable to him that Bucky was launched into space SOLO. Hence, protective!Rocket.
> 
> “Stove Rockers” -- OK, I think there could be a tiny part of Bucky that resents Steve. Like, a holdover from Captain America: The First Avenger when Bucky was (to my eyes) struggling to come to terms with Steve’s sudden prestige as Captain America. And maybe Rocket gives Bucky a safe outlet for some of that because yeah, Captain America isn’t perfect and Bucky’s allowed to be upset about getting the shit end of the stick.
> 
> You don’t have to agree with Rocket’s reasons for hating on Steve Rogers. (I personally don’t hate Steve Rogers, but I do get pretty exasperated with him.)


	15. Chapter 15

“We all agreed,” Quill said in a soft, casual murmur as he deposited his mug on the stack of dishes that Bucky hadn’t gotten around to washing yet. The water had gone cold, so he was currently refilling the sink.

He glanced at Quill in a mute prompt for the man to just spit it out.

“We’re not telling you-know-who what you would’ve been going home to.” Quill squinted. “You knew, didn’t you?”

Bucky reached past Quill’s cup and picked up Drax’s. Out of spite.

Quill just shook his head, thoroughly unamused by Bucky’s non-denial. “Man. Rocket would climb--the--walls. Like, we’re talking _nuclear.”_

“He’s not going to hear it from me,” Bucky replied because, hell yes, he was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut. The years he had spent _not_ calling up Tony Stark to apologize for the assassinations of his parents stood as Exhibit A.

“Still,” Quill persisted, leaning against the counter, “that’s not just penance. That’s throwing in the towel. We don’t do that around here.”

“But you do make calls behind someone’s back.”

“Dude. Like we weren’t gonna check it out. Did you expect us to just drop you on the doorstep like a bag of flaming dogshit and then take off?”

Expect? No, Bucky supposed not. Hope for? Yes, damn it, he had. Bucky had intended to let Steve think he was still in outer space. At least until the death of the Winter Soldier made headlines.

Bucky glanced over and met Quill’s stare head-on. “You might come to regret not doing that.”

“We’ll take our chances.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Clapping his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, he said with pride, “That’s our M.O. We’re not changing it up just for you.”

“Fair enough.” Then Bucky’s lips twitched and he said, “It hurts just looking at you. Take that hamburger head to bed, Quill.”

“No respect,” he airily complained, but he left. Instead of heading for the ladder, he scuffed his way toward a quiet section of the cargo hold. A moment later, Bucky heard Quill kick off his boots and then the door of the first-aid pod slid shut behind him.

Bucky was alone in the galley. Groot and Mantis were on watch in the cockpit. Everyone else had already retreated to their bunks for a few more hours of shuteye (or recovery time). It was as quiet as the ship ever got and Bucky had to focus hard on not crushing any of the serving ware with his left hand. Rocket’s creation was easily as strong as his Hydra-made arm had been, which made it just as deadly. It would come down to Bucky, then. Like always.

He sighed. There were times when he wished he could tear both his own arms off.

He finished cleaning up and soundlessly made his way down to the lower deck. As he approached Rocket’s door, it cracked open and a brown eye peeped out at him. Bucky held that gaze as he opened his own door and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Rocket slipped into the corridor and padded over. And, like a good host, Bucky didn’t say a word about the fact that Rocket was bringing a pillow with him. To their sleepover.

The door shut soundlessly behind him and Bucky turned on the lights, watched as Rocket tossed the pillow on Bucky’s precision-made bed. His paws clamped onto the hem of his shirt. Hesitated.

Bucky undressed like he did every night and then reached for his Wakanda clothing. He could feel Rocket watching his every move as he stepped into the soft pants and pulled the ribbed tank top on over his head. Then he took a moment to arrange his boots (with a clean pair of socks rolled up and tucked into the left one) under the stool beside the door. On one wall hook, he hung up his jacket, on another the overshirt he next planned to wear. His trousers (belted) got folded up and placed on the seat of the stool along with a clean undershirt and underwear. Bucky wedged the alien knife under the edge of the mattress. Everything within easy reach. Just in case.

Combing his fingers through his hair, he turned toward Rocket. He’d tugged his own shirt off, but he was folding and re-folding it, smoothing out the wrinkles with single-minded attention to detail. Bucky glimpsed the smooth, metallic bolts poking out of Rocket’s back: two beneath each shoulder blade, forming a square across his upper back, and a single larger component set in the center. Smaller ones marched down his spine, visible until the middle of his back. How much of “Rocket” was possible because of those bits of metal and the circuitry underneath?

For the first time, Bucky was willing to admit that being a cyborg wasn’t all bad. Not from where he was standing.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Nothing you don’t want,” Bucky reminded him.

Rocket’s chin jerked up. “You meant that, huh?”

“’Course.” Bucky waited for Rocket to shrug his shirt back on. “Door or wall?”

“Wall.”

Bucky reached for the light switch, hesitating until Rocket was settled, his pillow butted up against the rolled-up backpack. A quick tap and then the only light in the room came from tiny pinpricks of starlight through the porthole.

“Sorry -- the view’s nothing special,” Bucky said, quiet and low.

He both heard and felt a slight rustle as Rocket shifted. “I’m not complaining about the company.”

Bucky lay back, hands on his belly, and listened to Rocket’s breathing. Not so much a sound as a certainty that Bucky wasn’t alone in the dark. “You ready to tell me?” he asked. “About what I walked in on earlier?”

The scene in the galley -- everyone hunched around the table and Rocket, sounding so forlorn: _“I don’t know what to do.”_ Bucky might not have had his head totally together, but he distinctly remembered several telling phrases and was deeply interested in what Rocket had revealed to his family. Or what they had badgered out of him.

“Not really, no,” Rocket mumbled.

“OK,” Bucky said.

A long moment passed. “OK? You’re really good with that?”

“Yeah.” Maybe some of it really was Bucky’s business, but he wasn’t going to force it because Bucky knew what it felt like to be trapped with an arm locked in a vise, metaphorical or otherwise. He nudged Rocket with his right elbow, bumping what felt like a wrist. “Not all humans are as nosy as Quill.”

Rocket shuddered. “Ugh. Do not speak that name here.”

Bucky chuckled.

Stillness and silence settled. They breathed in the dark. But then Rocket inched closer and Bucky lifted his arm, waiting until Rocket was snugged against his side.

Bucky’s fingers lowered, landing on and diving into Rocket’s soft pelt, his palm curling around the back of a muscular neck. He rubbed the curve of Rocket’s skull with his thumb. Back and forth.

Rocket trilled a soft whine, but didn’t ask Bucky to stop.

Bucky’s fingers found their way to the base of his ears. Then up to trace the furred edges. Finally, a short slide away, they massaged Rocket’s brows.

Rocket, in turn, curled a paw into the slack of his shirt and pulled himself up until he could nuzzle Bucky’s jaw. A paw combed through his hair, slow and hypnotic.

Bucky’s spine loosened against the bed, his hips relaxing and thighs shifting just a little wider.

Rocket inhaled slowly against Bucky’s neck and it was just like on those rooftops -- Bucky was flying. Safe and soaring. Exhilarated.

Tilting his chin nearer, careful not to discourage Rocket from his lazy and aimless exploration, Bucky smiled at the feel of fur against his lips, catching in his beard. He breathed out and felt Rocket’s ear twitch.

“I wasn’t kidding about that day and half,” Rocket warned him. “Minimum.”

“Hm. Gotta work on my timing.”

Sharp teeth nipped at his ear and tingles erupted up and down Bucky’s spine.

“Now who’s starting something he doesn’t have time to finish?”

Rocket growled into the fall of Bucky’s hair. Above Bucky’s heart, a paw tensed and he felt claw tips on the verge of poking through the thin knit weave of his top. “I blame you. Stop smelling so good and maybe we can both get some sleep.”

Bucky’s lips curled into a smile because he could say the same thing about Rocket’s delicate bones that Bucky’s fingers wanted to trace. Memorize. There was something about Rocket that made Bucky remember how to be gentle, how to marvel, how to let down his guard.

The words swirled in his brain, but never made it to his mouth before sleep seeped into him. Slow, warm, and complete.

When he opened his eyes, he was curled on his side with his back to the door and the unchanging view from the porthole watching over him. Rocket was wrapped around his sleeve-encased left arm, his back tucked tight against Bucky’s chest. Bucky’s right arm was half-burrowed under Rocket’s pillow and Bucky was thankful that Rocket had a clear preference for the pillow, otherwise his arm would have been completely numb.

Bucky shifted, rocking his hips to loosen sleep-settled muscles, and angled his chin down. When he inhaled, Rocket’s scent coaxed a wave of contentment over him. Ah, God. This was how Bucky wanted to wake up. Every day for the rest of forever.

He melted back into slumber.

The feel of claws gently combing through his beard woke him.

His lashes fluttered and it was still dark, of course. It was always dark out here in space. But he could feel Rocket’s warmth and weight against his side. “Sleep at all?” he rasped, voice rough.

“Yeah. Almost as much as you, bright eyes.” Rocket petted his brow. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He found Rocket’s face and returned the favor of grooming, carefully brushing through Rocket’s fur, blindly coaxing flattened hairs to flare out from his cheeks. _“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,”_ Quill had said and it amused Bucky to think that Bucky and Rocket might just make a pretty good pair by that set of criteria.

Creaky footsteps in the hall. Groot. He knocked on Rocket’s door twice. Then, without waiting for a response, he knocked on Bucky’s.

“Thanks, Groot,” Bucky called back, groping for the light switch. He made an effort to shield Rocket’s eyes with his right hand as he hit it. _Ugh. Bright._ “Be right out.”

“I am Groot,” he replied smugly and then plodded away.

Rocket’s head dropped heavily against Bucky’s shoulder. “Son of a…”

“What?”

“He knows I’m in here. I’m never gonna hear the end of this.”

“Oh, c’mon, you got this.” Bucky grinned and sat up. “Caveman.”

“I realize that now might not be the best time to ask but, uh, what exactly does this caveman-type do?”

“Well, basically, he’s an unapologetic, possessive dick who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks so long as his primitive urges are satisfied.”

“Oh, that’s flattering.” Rocket snorted.

Bucky reached for Rocket’s arm to delay his leap off of the bunk. “You’re not primitive.”

“But I’m unapologetic--”

“Yeah.”

“--possessive--”

“Hell yes.”

“--and a dick.”

“Oh, you can be.”

“Seriously?” Rocket hissed. “You--”

“I like you that way.”

“You--you what?”

“You heard me.” Smiling, Bucky dropped his tank top on the bed and reached for the clean undershirt he’d set out, pulling it on over his head as he talked: “So I don’t care if you tell Groot to mind his own business. And, I don’t care if the whole ship knows you slept in here with me. Do you?”

Rocket considered this for a moment before asking somberly, “This is what Quill calls ‘owning it,’ huh?”

Bucky gave him a look that was also a nudge. “I’m not embarrassed. If you are, then maybe we should back off.”

“Nothing I don’t want,” Rocket repeated. Like it was a mantra. He blew out a breath and glanced away so that Bucky could stand up and pull on a clean pair of underwear. “But I do know what I want. It’s just,” he shrugged, “there are, um, details to deal with.”

Pulling his pants up and fastening the buckle, Bucky told him, “Yours and mine, both.”

“But since you’re not going back to Terra…?”

Threading his arms through the sleeves of his space-bought tunic, Bucky compromised: “We’ll see what we can come up with.”

Rocket’s hands flapped between his knees where he was still sitting on the edge of the bed. “That’s not exactly a plan to be proud of.”

“Hate to break it to you, tiger, but these kinds of things don’t usually have one.”

“What kinds--”

Bucky wordlessly pointed at Rocket and then himself. Maybe it was a mistake to let this thing between them happen. The Winter Soldier was still inside him, like a genie in a bottle, and he had already hurt Rocket once.

But.

Bucky had lost too much already to turn away from the possibility of having something -- having some _one_ to belong with. He had survived for two years on his own and if he had learned anything in the last two weeks, it was this: a lonely existence wasn’t much of a life at all.

Did Bucky deserve a place in the world? No, likely not.

Was he willing to work hard to earn that back? Hell, yes. He was.

Having been given a second chance to sleep with Rocket snuggled against his side, Bucky could not deny how badly he wanted a third chance and a fourth. This connection that he and Rocket shared hadn’t been broken by Hydra’s legacy and Bucky knew -- deep down -- that something this good and pure and strong was worth fighting for, worth going to war for, and if that meant that Bucky would be battling the Winter Soldier every morning, noon, and night until the end of his days, then so be it. Bucky was ready to make a stand.

When he leaned down to slide his knife out from beneath the mattress, the motion brought his face close to Rocket’s and, when a paw cupped his chin, he paused. Rocket titled their brows together. He sighed heavily.

Curving his hand around the back of Rocket’s neck, Bucky gave the tense muscles a reassuring squeeze.

“C’mon,” Bucky urged. “Twenty more jumps and it’s payday.”

“Now that will definitely cheer me up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read somewhere online that, in the original Rocket Raccoon comics, he and other cybernetically engineered creatures were created for the purpose of working with patients (specifically people suffering from mental illnesses and disorders) and, in real-life studies, there seems to be some benefit and comfort gained from contact with “pets” by the elderly, too. (I don’t think that sums up Bucky’s feelings for Rocket, but it’s a contributing factor.) For a lot of people, they just can’t help feeling better when they spend time with a ball of fur. Interestingly, some Japanese tech companies have made robot pets that are soft and cuddle-able (I can think of one that’s a baby seal that sits on a person’s lap, moves its head and makes cute noises in response to being petted -- it’s really quite soothing and lifts patients’ moods). Although Bucky is injured (and an animal companion could be very soothing), that’s not the sum total of his attraction to Rocket (which is good because, as we’ll find out, Bucky is kind of stuck with him).
> 
> Also, as Bucky gets more and more used to space travel, he’s able to narrate the navigational details. The hop-skip-and-a-jump from the beginning of the story was not a trip of three single hyper-jumps; each was a series of many jumps. It was just that Bucky was too overwhelmed to really sort that out at the time.
> 
> Although Bucky doesn’t make a note of it in his POV at the time, that moment in the previous chapter when he realized that Rocket probably loved him was the The Moment. After that, there was no way Bucky could just walk away. He gives us a little rationale for this at the end of this chapter, but FYI, it was a done deal before that (it’s just that now Bucky’s consciously accepting it).


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rocket POV
> 
> WARNINGS: mention of self-inflicted injury, non-explicit mention of torture
> 
> Also, this chapter is on the long-ish side because of flashback reasons.

As far as conceited douchebags went, the Sovereign were a tough act to beat, but Steve frickin’ Rogers could have dethroned the whole gold-plated lot without even trying. Rocket felt his lips curl into a silent snarl as his paws moved over the _Milano’s_ controls, absently compensating for Quill’s flashy piloting and tendency to waste fuel as they approached the landing coordinates.

That still left Rocket with plenty of headspace for being bitter. And why shouldn’t he be? Bucky’s childhood chum and best friend -- what a putz. Rocket would have laughed right in that pompous bald-body’s face if every inch of Rocket’s skin hadn’t been itching to turn Captain Screw-Up inside out.

Bucky deserved better.

Bucky deserved _vengeance._

Only part of that was jealousy talking. Like, 10% jealousy. A small 10% that was not going to be useful here, so Rocket pushed past it and focused on giving the _Milano III_ a smooth landing on the deserted, desolate third moon of Thuvin.

The whole solar system was a shithole of weapons-grade nuclear radiation and cosmic dust. The kind of crap that settled deep into fur and never seemed to frickin’ wash out. Rocket had been out this way once. Long ago on a stolen, single engine hyper craft, and nothing about the place had recommended itself to either exploration or scavenging. So it wasn’t all that much of a shock that the Lem had built a monitoring station here. The frickin’ dustball wasn’t good for much else.

Rocket wasn’t a big fan of the Lems’ whole non-verbal communication deal, but for the payment that this group was offering for the return of their precious Tome of Ra, he might actually dust off his good manners for a change. A quick transaction -- thirty minutes tops -- and then they’d all be dropping into the next hyper-jump. On their way back to Berhert or maybe onward to Morag or some other habitable spaceball. Rocket didn’t give a damn. Not as long as they had time to regroup and see what they could do about unbreaking Bucky just a little better than they had in the first round.

Bucky. Damn. Even now, Rocket was shocked at himself for signing up to go to Terra, something he never would have done without either the promise of (1) a couple of million units or (2) the fight of the millennium. (But preferably both.)

 _I should invest a little effort in unbreaking me,_ he mused wryly, knowing full well that it was never gonna happen. Rocket was too broken already. But then, who aboard the _Milano_ wasn’t?

“You dealt with the Lem before?” Bucky asked in that raspy baritone. A voice made low and uneven from too much screaming. Hours and hours of it over and over. Permanent vocal chord damage that had happened before the mods had kicked in. It was shit like this -- nuances that poured into Rocket’s sensitive ears -- that had first told him Bucky’s story before he’d ever cracked open the files that Stark had sent.

But Bucky wasn’t talking to Rocket -- Rocket’s ears picked up on that. He wasn’t even talking to Gamora. It was Drax (of all people) that he’d aimed his question at.

“The Lem are not warriors.” And as far as Drax was concerned, that answered that question.

“Solid galactic citizens,” Quill offered (free of charge). “Involved with peacekeeping. A fine tradition that goes way back.”

Bucky was quiet for a moment. “What are the odds their interest is limited to the tome? There’s still a bounty on you, right?”

“Don’t freak out.” Quill’s smile twitched into a wince as the starboard engine squealed, burning and choking on a dustcloud. “They’re not gonna turn me over to the Kree.”

“Why not? I would,” Rocket sassed as the ship set down with only the slightest sideways shift in the fine powder.

Bucky pressed, “If the Lem peacekeeping practices are such a fine tradition, then why hide a facility here?”

Rocket’s brows shot up. “I would also like to hear a good answer to that question.” He reaffirmed his grip on the ship’s throttle. The engines were winding down, but he could rev them up in a jiffy.

Quill rolled his eyes. “If you’re so worried, then why don’t you and Bucky stay here with Mantis? Just in case we need a fast getaway.”

“Or, someone to rescue your sorry butt,” Rocket acquiesced with a grumble.

As she passed between the pilots’ seats, Gamora rubbed Rocket’s shoulder and he let her because, somehow, it never felt condescending coming from her. More like a shared moment of irony.

As Drax left the cockpit, he noted to Rocket, “Without you there to provoke a fight, I doubt we will enjoy ourselves.”

“Gee, what a shame,” Rocket snarked.

Quill threw aside his harness. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

 _“Not_ a problem.”

Mantis followed them down to the hull hatch. It’d be easier for her to seal it back up rather than wait for Quill to jab at random buttons in the airborne dust.

Groot bumped a fist against Bucky’s left shoulder on his way down. “I am Groot,” he stated.

Rocket slapped a hand over his face, shoulders hunching. “Just shut up and get outta here.”

“Hm-mm-mm,” Groot teased.

“How would you know? And no, I am not gonna take your suggestion.”

“I am Groot.”

“Oh yes, you would. Why you lying? Go.” Rocket shooed him away and glared at various gauges and readings on the ship console until the hatch door resealed and Mantis started humming to herself while she rattled around in the galley.

Rocket determinedly kept an eye on the screen that showed four heat signatures of varying intensities moving toward the nearby access point to the buried Lem structure, watching until they disappeared inside it.

Budging aside the awkward silence, Bucky mused, “I don’t wanna know what Groot said, do I?”

“Groot,” Rocket gritted out, trying to look busy, “thinks it would be a great idea for us to kill time by making out.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“We’re not doing that.”

“Why not? We might like it.”

That was precisely what Groot had said. Rocket groaned. “Unbelievable. It’s like the two of you share a brain.”

“Let me guess: Groot also promised not to tell on us.”

“How did you--? Never mind.”

Bucky chuckled, and that soft, rasping laugh gave Rocket an honest-to-God thrill from the tips of his ears to the claws on his toes.

Another moment of silence settled in the cockpit, but it wasn’t strained or awkward, so Rocket almost didn’t notice the lack of words until Bucky spoke again: “Sorry.”

Rocket quirked a brow over his shoulder.

From his seat beside the navigator’s position, Bucky ruefully elaborated, “You’re missing out on the action because I opened my big mouth.”

“Nah. Someone’s gotta stay with the ship. These handoffs can go sideways in a hurry, if you know what I mean.”

“Are you talking about the time you stole from the Sovereign, insulted them to their faces, and then Ego had to save the _Milano_ from being blown apart by their fleet?”

The sound of someone carefully climbing up the ladder preceded the appearance of two antennae and a ladybug with a tray of tea and nibbles in one hand.

Bucky smiled a greeting at Mantis. “Drax told me the story.”

“Snack?” she asked, holding out the tray to Rocket first.

Quill was adamant: food and drinks were not allowed in the cockpit. This here and now was as good as farting in Quill’s oxygen tank.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He collected a cup and a handful of caramelized nuts. So what if it would make his hand sticky. Maybe he’d jump over to Quill’s seat and paw the controls before he washed up.

As Bucky helped himself, Rocket backtracked: “The Sovereign -- one of my better moments.”

Bucky gave him a speculative look, and Rocket insisted, “Those batteries did end up coming in handy. Saved our butts. And I have zero regrets for what I said. Somebody had to teach those stuck-up jerkoffs a lesson.”

Bucky nodded, slow and thoughtful. “And you selflessly stepped up.”

“Well, yeah! I-- wait. You’re being sarcastic right now, aren’t you?” Rolling his eyes at Bucky’s wry grin, Rocket complained, “You and Quill. Damn it, that is so frickin’ obnoxious.”

Mantis giggled. “Rocket, you are so cute when you are crabby.”

“Don’t call me crabby. Quill gets crabby.” Especially when he got to be the one stuck twiddling his thumbs on the _Milano_ during a handoff. Rocket had nothing in common with that moron.

“Quill pouts,” Bucky pointed out. “You snarl. Both are variations of crabby.”

“Don’t give me an excuse, bright eyes.”

With the utmost innocence and air of hospitality, Mantis inquired, “Do you need one?”

Bucky snorted into his mug, gurgling in his tea.

Rocket laughed -- couldn’t not laugh -- as Bucky wiped at his chin with his right hand and Mantis dashed down the ladder to grab a napkin for mopping up.

“Dribble some of that on Quill’s seat, will ya?” Rocket egged.

Bucky’s eyes narrowed--

_Beep--beep!_

A light on the console blinked with an incoming call from Gamora. Rocket tapped the line open. “So how bad did Quill screw up?”

Gamora blurted, “Lock and load! We need--”

And then the transmission cut off. Static filled the cockpit. Ominous and invasive.

Bucky was already moving, practically sliding down the ladder with his cup still in one hand. Rocket unbuckled and scurried after him, dumping his tea in the sink alongside Bucky’s and then catching up to him at the hull weapon’s cabinet.

“You should stay here,” Bucky told him as Mantis hurried to the control panel, ready to crack open the hatch.

“No,” Rocket insisted.

“This could be a trap--”

“Like hell you’re having _all_ the fun.”

“Rocket--”

“You ain’t going without me.”

Bucky froze and something flashed in his eyes. Some memory that Rocket tried really hard not to hate not knowing. But he did hate it. He hated that there were places -- especially the ones locked inside Bucky’s head -- that Rocket hadn’t seen. Jealousy didn’t begin to cover it.

“OK,” Bucky said and passed Rocket a laser rifle. He nodded for Mantis to release the lock and pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose and mouth. It wouldn’t do much, but it’d filter out some of the dust.

Rocket gritted his teeth and got ready to grin-and-bear it.

“Be careful!” Mantis bid them.

“You, too, ladybug,” Bucky said as the door opened and dust plumed up.

Rocket gave her arm a quick pat in passing because he didn’t have to be an asshole _all_ the time. This stupid frickin’ jealousy did not control him. It did not.

They loped across the squishy ground in the moon’s low gravity and, for a moment, Rocket started to worry because he wasn’t seeing any sort of door in the structure that Quill and them had disappeared into. But then, just three paces from the looming rock wall, visibility cleared enough for Rocket to make out the entrance to a large tunnel. A peaked roof and triangular design. The sort favored by the Lem.

Bucky was already angling toward it, but Rocket nudged him anyway. Because who knew what kind of shitstorm they were heading into and if he didn’t take this chance for contact, well. Rocket couldn’t stand the thought of regretting such a simple missed opportunity.

They ducked out of the dusty air and into the gloom of the tunnel. Kept their pace fast until a large hangar door materialized in front of their noses. Bucky’s left arm shot out, pushing off and abruptly changing course, crashing him into Rocket, who grunted but didn’t actually mind. A smaller, personnel access door was now directly ahead of them.

Rocket looked it over, then gave Bucky the go-ahead to make some noise.

He tapped out an inquisitive sound on the door and then braced himself for the enemy to come flying out. Rocket was ready to laser off some kneecaps.

The door creaked open.

Their rifles locked on.

Gamora held up a hand. “Get in here,” she hissed, standing back so they could squeeze inside. Enjoy the hospitality of artificial gravity and filtered air. But even then, visibility was crap. It was like trying to tell what Groot had tossed into the stew.

Rocket took a quick look around the airlock. The opposite door was open and, through that, he could just barely make out the prone form of a Lem. Either unconscious or dead.

They didn’t have to prod Gamora into action; she was already disappearing around a corner and Bucky matched her quick strides with silent steps. Rocket took up the rear position, keeping an eye on the downed Lem guard until it was out of sight.

“Situation?” Bucky prompted very, very quietly.

“The client expressed an interest in hiring the Winter Soldier.”

Rocket bristled. “The hell they did.”

Gamora continued, “Quill refused to pass their offer on. Things went downhill from there.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Rocket grumbled and then slammed right into the back of Bucky’s legs. “What is it?”

He was frozen in place, feet rooted to the dusty floor. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“What?”

Bucky bit out, “They know about the Winter Soldier. They _know.”_

Which meant that the Winter Soldier’s reputation had reached space. Probably bundled up with the activation phrase. A package deal. “Aw, crap. Look, you--”

Rocket’s suggestion died as lights blazed. He squinted, searching for something to shoot at in the blurry air.

“Rocket! Look out!” Gamora shouted and he spun--

But there was nothing there. He glanced over his shoulder in confusion and then it all became clear.

Gamora’s smiling face melted into the pointy-eared, green visage of a Skrull. A shapeshifter. He brought the rifle around on a growl--

Something -- or someone -- ripped the weapon from Rocket’s grasp and then a tiny disc landed on his chest.

“No!”

Too late. With a single blink of a red light, it activated and Rocket found himself floating in a pale, softly glowing bubble. A sensory deprivation cage.

His paws scrabbled against the smooth, seamless wall even though Rocket knew it wouldn’t do any good. Not one bit. These frickin’ things could only be burst from the outside. He clawed at the soft interior of the bubble but couldn’t even manage to carve a tiny scratch.

Rocket slapped at the small, metal disc that had dug into the fur and skin on his chest but somehow kept himself from tearing it free and setting off the explosive charge inside.

Oh, God. Oh, God, this was just like--oh, God, he was back in that hellhole laboratory. He was trapped. Helpless. Waiting to be chosen for another experiment or procedure and there would be agony because there was always agony and--

He stopped. Fisted his hands. Forced himself to take a deep breath. These bubbles were real good at amplifying the subject’s panic, keeping him in a state of heightened agitation until he was little more than catatonic from exhaustion.

“Breathe,” Rocket ordered himself. “Think!” He checked his watch -- the screen was blank, stopped. The containment field was blocking out all communication signals, including the pulse that synched his timepiece with the ship’s clock.

“Breathe and start counting.” Because being locked inside one of these things, with no point of reference for the passing of time, could make an hour seem like days. “They’ll open it. They’ve gotta open it at some point.”

But would it be too late for Bucky? Oh, God, these Skrull assholes (and there had to be more than one -- they tended to stick together, forming a chummy little planetless group of refugees) were going to hurt Bucky. They knew about the Winter Soldier and, damn it, this was not good.

Rocket knew of only one way to escape these bubbles: his heart rate would have to drop way, _way_ down. The targeting device that was anchored to his chest also contained a sensor that monitored his vitals. If he were dying, the bubble would pop. He could do it. He had sharp teeth and the veins in his forearms could be messily opened up. But what good would he be to anyone if he were dying? What if Bucky was in another room? What if Quill and the others were too far away?

_Damn it!_

He was helpless. Disgustingly helpless. This situation was even worse than being back in that Outpost 9 docking bay, watching the Winter Soldier power through Bucky’s mind and mercilessly mow down his friends.

This was worse than the soul-crushing sense of failure as the Winter Soldier had tossed Rocket into the abyss like a sack of dirty laundry.

This was worse than reliving those moments over and over again while he’d waited for the first-aid pod to knit his bones back together, praying that when Bucky came to, he’d be “Bucky” again.

And this was a million times worse than obediently obeying Quill’s pointed finger and sitting down at the galley table, baring his soul and psyche to his jackass family in the Outpost 9 aftermath.

> “Are you OK?” Gamora had asked simply and quietly, and Rocket had broken. Cracked open like an egg. Heaved wretched, soundless sobs because he was so screwed. So, so screwed.
> 
> He’d choked out, “How’d this frickin’ happen?”
> 
> “Uh, laser fire, I think…?” Quill had obliviously suggested.
> 
> Both of Rocket’s fists had slammed against the table. “No, you moron! _I need him.”_
> 
> Quill had frowned. “You say that like you’ve never…” And then the light bulb had blinked on. Of frickin’ course. “Oh, my God. You mean you’ve _NEVER…?”_
> 
> “Never.” Rocket had forced his chin up a notch. Stiff upper lip. All the better for lining up some brainless twit in his cross-hairs.
> 
> Mantis had asked, “But you must have felt something for somebody?”
> 
> “Yeah,” Quill had agreed. “I mean, you’re no spring chicken, pal.”
> 
> Drax had scowled, just as confused as Rocket over what a chicken was, but he hadn’t asked and Rocket had insisted: “It didn’t matter. I didn’t care.” Because Rocket didn’t have a species or a kind. Never had, never would. So -- who would want him? It was better to sneer at the whole production. Focus on disdain. Refuse to welcome rejection and failure with open arms like some kind of pathetic putz.
> 
> Gamora had cocked her head to the side and then grimaced when the motion had jarred her bruised neck. “Are we dealing with a biological urge, a mating instinct?”
> 
> Rocket had hesitated too long.
> 
> “There are whores,” Drax had encouragingly suggested, wincing through the pain of his injuries, “who would know--how to satisfy a--freak like you.”
> 
> Rocket’s fists had flattened, his paws gripping the edge of the table so tightly that both of his arms had ached from claws to shoulders. “It’s not about that!”
> 
> “Really?” Quill had drawled.
> 
> Rocket had looked guiltily away. “It’s not totally about that.”
> 
> “Then what is it _mostly_ about?” Gamora had calmly probed, slicing through his building frustration.
> 
> “It’s about,” Rocket had begun, speaking carefully around the churning in his guts. “It’s about knowing what it feels like to be a bug skewered on a stick, and the hands that hold it might as well belong to God himself for all the good it’ll do you to fight back. But you do. You fight back. Any way you can.”
> 
> He’d looked up as Drax had placed a hand on his healed shoulder in a show of silent support. Rocket had sucked in a breath and continued: “I’ve been where Bucky is. So have all of you, once or twice.”
> 
> When nobody had argued against that truth, Rocket had angrily let out the rest of it: “But for Bucky and for me, it’s a fight we face again and again. Every damn day. Because if we stop fighting, then it’s game over and we’re dead. Or worse.”
> 
> His gaze had dropped to the table, and he’d mumbled, “Bucky… He gets it: having someone to fight alongside makes it better. Doesn’t make it easier because _nothing_ makes this easier, and it doesn’t make it worth it because that’s just plain sick. But it’s still nice to have that someone else.”
> 
> For a moment, no one had said a word. But then, of course, Quill’d run out of patience at not being the center of the galaxy:
> 
> “Shared life experience. Yup, that’ll do it.”
> 
> Drax had patted Rocket’s arm. “There is something very wrong with you--”
> 
> “You _think?”_ Rocket had sputtered.
> 
> “It is an illness you share with Quill--”
> 
> Quill had taken exception: “Hey! _Totally_ different, pal!”
> 
> “Perhaps Bucky’s people know of a cure--”
> 
> Gamora had snarled, “Drax, for the love of--”
> 
> “But I do not believe your--unnatural desire is fleeting, and--I wish you luck.”
> 
> Rocket had blown out a long breath. “Thanks, but that’s not exactly helpful!”
> 
> Gamora had given him a commiserating smile. “You feel an affinity for him,” she’d stated plainly, her gaze roving inevitably toward Quill, who had received it with a soft-eyed look and a knowing expression.
> 
> Rocket had shaken his head (not because of doubt but because of the hopeless terror and panic and anger and denial) until Mantis had matter-of-factly weighed in: “I have felt it from you, Rocket. Whenever Bucky enters the room -- deep friendship and romantic, sexual love.”
> 
> Rocket had groaned, his head dropping onto his folded arms.
> 
> “How does Bucky feel?” Gamora had asked Mantis.
> 
> “Very much the same.”
> 
> Rocket had snarled. “Sonuvabitch!”
> 
> “That is--not good news?” Drax had asked, bewildered.
> 
> “Not when at least one person has _no frickin’ control over it!”_
> 
> Drax had blinked. “Such a thing cannot--be controlled.”
> 
> Clearing his throat, Quill had proposed, “How about taking a break from each other for a little while? If you guys give each other some space--”
> 
> Rocket had practically clawed furrows in the surface of the table.
> 
> “I WILL NOT ABANDON HIM, GOT IT?”

And then, a mere (but very incriminating) minute later, Bucky had climbed up into the galley and, God. Why did that dumbass Terran have to be so beautiful and so unfairly broken? And why couldn’t Rocket subdue these stupid, mindless urges to claim and possess? It was worse than embarrassing.

But the situation Rocket was in now was the worst of all. Hands down.

Somewhere in this hole, they could be strapping Bucky down, reading off the activation phrase and -- if that didn’t work -- they’d probably try shooting him up with resolve-weakening drugs or just plain, old-fashioned voltage and here Rocket was unable to do a single frickin’ thing except feel sick to his stomach.

_DAMN IT ALL!_

A keening wail. Rocket startled when he realized the sound was coming from his own throat and being absorbed by the soft walls of the bubble. Oh, God, this was it -- he really was losing his mind.

“One--two--three,” he chanted, struggling to keep his shit together.

_Count. Keep counting._

“Twenty-nine--thirty--”

_Keep counting. OK._

OK, he was thinking straight now. Which meant he was very aware of the fact that he had no plan -- _none_ \-- for the moment the bubble walls disappeared. He imagined it: one Skrull facing him, or maybe there’d be two. Maybe there’d be one on each side. He threw shadow punches and limbered up. Kept counting.

“Five hundred and seventy-two--”

“Eight hundred--”

“One thousand and one--”

“One thousand nine hundred and nineteen--”

“Three thousand twenty-two--”

_POP!_

The disc attached to Rocket’s chest released its grip and tumbled off. This was it and Rocket launched--

A rifle butt came down on his skull, dazing him, but despite his swimmy vision, he could count six Skrulls, all armed and all looking smug as shit.

“You will walk or we will kill you now and select one of your friends for our test.”

“Test?” he mewled because shit that hurt. He pushed himself to his feet. Shuffled further into the gloomy room as the unpleasant ends of the laser rifles prompted him forward. The room he was in was cavernous and there were other bubbles. Four of them. The biggest one had to be Groot’s. Unless Drax had dropped a famously huge turd at the critical moment.

Rocket felt his muzzle twitch into a sneer. Inappropriate humor was the best humor. It pushed back the dread and terror and if this was it -- if Rocket was about to die -- then he’d damn well die as a mean-spirited bag of dicks.

All four bubbles (plus Rocket’s previous one) had been arranged in a semi circle. At the focus of which was a table with straps and clamps hanging loose over the sides. His ears twitched at the soft crackle of electricity, the occasional spark from an apparatus that could only be meant for one thing: frying a brain into submission.

“Aw, shit,” Rocket breathed and no amount of inappropriate humor could push back this dread. He gaped at the figure standing off to the side. Tall and strong; shirtless; a broad chest that expanded impressively with each heavy breath; powerful arms at his sides; chin tilted down; loose, sweaty hair falling over his brows, concealing his face.

“Bucky!”

He didn’t move. Didn’t so much as twitch.

“Bucky, snap out of it!”

But Bucky merely continued staring straight ahead at nothing but shadows. Rocket belatedly clocked the two scientists, a military commander, and ten guards clustered (at a comfortable firing distance) around Bucky, and Rocket felt a tiny sprig of hope because maybe Bucky was faking it. Maybe he was waiting for an opening to--

“Kill the vermin,” the commander ordered. “Now.”

“Orders received,” Bucky responded in an emotionless, grating monotone, “and understood.”

The armed guards surrounding Rocket retreated, creating a firing squad at his back, but Rocket only had eyes for the figure turning his way. Unblinking, narrowed eyes, pupils wide and dark against splotchy skin.

“Bucky, what’d they do to you?” Rocket asked, throat going dry and drier with every unhurried, purposeful step the Winter Soldier took in his direction.

“Bucky!” he called.

Another step.

“C’mon, Buck…” Rocket pleaded, daring to use the name that only Steve frickin’ Rogers was allowed to call him. Just the other day, back on Outpost 9, Bucky had almost clocked Quill for testing it out. And Rocket really wished he had; he’d have loved to see Quill fly ass over smirk and land face-down on a filthy, sticky bar floor. What a waste.

“C’mon, bright eyes, it’s me. It’s Rocket.”

Another step brought the Winter Soldier within range -- it was now or never.

Rocket leaped at him, squirming and dodging past those long arms and clawing toward that strong chest--if he could just get close enough to shake that frickin’ soldier loose--!

“ARGH!!” Rocket screamed, not in pain but in fury because he was caught. That superhuman left hand was wrapped around his neck, fingers pressing into his scruff and thumb gouging against his jaw. He choked, wheezing: “No--no! BUCKY!!”

Rocket scratched and kicked and fought. In that timeless moment before the end, he pulled out all the stops. Rocket twisted and clawed, his foot scraped ineffectually against the soldier’s right hand -- scratched the side of his wrist -- but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Rocket was stupidly-stupid _-stupid_ in love with this mind-wiped killer who was about to snap his neck and Rocket had never told him. Bucky would never know that Rocket’s cybernetically screwed up brain-biology-instincts had mated him (for life, it ironically seemed) to a former Hydra-made assassin from Terra and--

The prosthetic thumb moved. Stroked once, twice, a third time. Stopped.

Rocket’s struggles weakened. His mouth moved absent breath.

The thumb moved again. Once, twice. Stopped.

A countdown. Rocket slapped weakly at the arm holding him three feet off of the ground: three slaps with one hand, and then two with the other.

_MESSAGE FRICKIN’ RECEIVED._

And then Bucky’s left thumb moved for the last time: _one!_

Rocket was thrown through the air, filling his lungs and letting loose a screaming battle cry.

In the center of the room, laser pulses punctuated the sound of running footsteps.

Hands out, Rocket smashed head-first, clawing, at the bubble on his direct trajectory. It burst and Drax jolted as if waking from a hypnotic trance.

“Drax! Pop the other bubbles!” Rocket barked.

“Incoming!” a familiar voice hollered and Rocket turned, grabbing the laser rifle out of the air and resetting the charge for MAXIMUM DAMAGE.

“Yeah,” he purred on a vicious smile and promptly initiated chaotic crossfire as Skrull reinforcements flooded the room.

Bucky was a storm of violence, spinning-punching-kicking, surrounded by armed guards, lunging-dodging-pulling one Skrull after another off of his feet and shoving him into the path of others, all while trying to keep his left arm up to protect his head from a direct blast.

And then: _POP!_

Gamora’s snarling shout of freedom.

_POP!_

A string of profanity from Quill.

_POP!_

A mighty roar from Groot.

Drax barreled toward the Skrull commander as Gamora and Quill scooped up dropped rifles. Groot’s vines shot out, skewering the scientists and plowing them into, through, and across the battlefield. In under three seconds, he’d more or less devastated the enemy.

_So frickin’ unfair._

A pained shout -- Bucky went down on one knee. One of the few surviving guards was moving in, staggering but dialing up the power of the laser and -- crap -- this was gonna be a kill shot--

Rocket fired and the Skrull’s head snapped back. He toppled. Bullseye.

Rocket rushed to Bucky’s side as Gamora took down the last-standing Skrull with a blast to center mass.

Drax had the commander in a headlock and although the Skrull struggled to imitate Drax’s powerful form, he was too weak to manage it.

“What the hell were your plans for Bucky!?” Quill bellowed furiously, right in the commander’s bruise-mottled face.

Rocket listened with only half an ear to the wheezing confession, too busy smoothing damp strands of hair off of Bucky’s clammy brow and looking him over for injuries to give much of a damn about the details. “You still with me, cutie?”

Bucky panted, coughed out a laugh, and let Rocket sling his laser-burnt right arm over his narrow shoulders. “Yeah. I’m with you, tiger.”

Relief. God, it was so all-encompassing that it was painful. The best agony of Rocket’s life.

He pressed his forehead to Bucky’s as Groot meandered over to do the heavy lifting. “Can’t leave you alone for an hour, can I?” Rocket said, low and sincere, his gaze seeking-catching-holding Bucky’s. “So guess what -- you’re stuck with me now.”

“This is payback, isn’t it? For tossing you.”

“Damn right it is.”

Bucky’s lips curled and his lashes drifted down. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skrulls -- I don’t consider the whole species “bad guys,” FYI. Bucky’s role in their Evil Plan will be briefly touched on in the next chapter.
> 
> “orders received and understood” -- that line is from “Doom” (2005). I borrowed it because I can’t remember hearing what the Winter Soldier says to acknowledge a mission.
> 
> “You ain’t going without me.” -- the memory Bucky experiences when Rocket says this line is that moment in the burning Hydra factory after Bucky makes it across the ceiling beam to the opposite catwalk alone and Steve tells him to go and Bucky refuses: “Not without you!”
> 
> one hour -- Rocket counts to about 3000. 3000 ÷ 60 seconds = about 50 minutes (+ 10 minutes or so of freaking out and flashback time)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: interspecies sexytimes (as promised/threatened in the tags)
> 
> (The sexual activities themselves are fairly vanilla and not too explicit, but there is some description because this is a learning experience for Bucky and Rocket, yeah? Still, I’ve included a scene break before things start getting heavy just in case that’s not your cuppa. Once you reach that, you can skip ahead to the next chapter, no problem. Or, you can scroll down to the chapter end notes for some sexytimes spoilers if you don’t know me well enough to trust me.) (^_~)

Bucky didn’t remember much of the trip back to the _Milano_ even though Rocket insisted that Bucky had been conscious every step of the way. Bucky assumed that Groot had hauled him out of that underground bunker with Rocket taking point. It reminded him vaguely of when they’d first met on Kraglin’s ship just with Bucky rather than the cryo-pod in tow.

“Whatcha grinning about?” Rocket demanded, pulling his galley stool close to Bucky’s with a rattle and climbing up.

His knee bumped Bucky’s thigh, but he kept his distance from Bucky’s right arm. Bucky damned his heart for falling even more in love with Rocket at his obvious show of care. The first-aid pod had healed up the burns and blisters in record time due to his accelerated healing, but Rocket wasn’t assuming that it wasn’t still tender. So Bucky initiated contact, elbowing Rocket until Rocket elbowed him back.

“Am I over my smile quota today?” Bucky quipped and Rocket gave him a light smack to the back of his head.

“No, but if you didn’t bring enough happy times for the rest of the class…” Rocket gave him a pointed look.

Bucky smirked and shared, “It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks, huh?”

“Eh, not all of it was hell.”

“Yeah.”

Quill clattered down from the cockpit. “Hey, jackasses. You guys even care why a small army of Skrulls set their sights on the Winter Soldier?”

“No,” Rocket retorted, sounding bored and resigned, “but you’re gonna tell us anyway.”

Bucky pushed out a stool in invitation (because he did want to hear this) and, after scooping up a drink packet from the refrigeration unit, Quill accepted.

“Well, it turns out that the Skrull still haven’t forgiven or forgotten the Kree’s efforts to obliterate them.” He poked the provided straw into the packet and slurped up a mouthful which he proceeded to swish between his puffed-out cheeks vigorously. He swallowed with a grimace. “Forgot to shake well first. Bleh.”

There were times when Bucky really, honestly wondered how Quill had survived however long without Gamora’s common sense and Rocket’s well-developed instinct for self-preservation to dissuade him from doing something fatally stupid.

“How did they think I was going to solve their Kree problem for them?”

Quill shrugged a shoulder and leaned back. “Well, after they got you to take out several key individuals in the Kree Empire, Skrull agents were going to assume their identities. Make sure things heated up to the point of civil war while you started causing real chaos. It was a win-win for them since you’ve got no apparent connection to the Skrull and you came with both the hardware and software included.”

Rocket patted Bucky’s shoulder. “Don’t you feel special.”

“So special. Any reason why they impersonated Lem in particular?”

“Well, technically, the Lem _appear_ to have been the legitimate owners. At least at one point, so that pretty much guaranteed we’d take the job. Oh! That reminds me -- you guys are gonna love this,” Quill continued. “The ‘bon voyage’ party at the Outpost 9 dock? All Skrull.”

“What a bunch of shit smears,” Rocket grouched under his breath.

“Another faction,” Bucky guessed, “trying to get their hands on the tome?”

Quill smirked. “Either way, that little show ended up being your audition--” He cocked a finger gun at Bucky before pulling the trigger. “--and you passed.”

Bucky ruefully shook his head. “Was the Tome of Ra even stolen to begin with?”

Rocket sat up straighter at that, ears perked.

“The story was that they planted it in the Priory themselves. The commander back there was pretty adamant about how it was ‘on loan,’” Quill air-quoted, “from the Lem. To help them protect themselves against the Kree.”

Bucky argued, “It’s more likely there’s a Skrull agent working in the Priory.”

Quill nodded. “With knowledge of the tome’s whereabouts but without either the means to retrieve it or the willingness to risk blowing their cover.”

Bucky concluded, “Which would mean they controlled our movements every step of the way.”

“That is how it looks,” Quill concurred.

Rocket crossed his arms over his chest. “And now we’re just gonna give this tome back to the Lem outta the goodness of our hearts.”

“Gamora and Mantis are looking into what the tome really is and, once we figure out where it ought to go, we’ll head that way. There could be a reward.” Quill paused for effect. “If not, a favor from the Lem is nothing to sneer at.”

Rocket considered that for a moment before he relented with a shrug.

Bucky asked, “Now where to?”

Quill’s mouth smushed into a thoughtful moue. “I know a little place -- kinda outta the way. Good for recuperating.”

 _And therapy,_ he didn’t say but Bucky clocked it all the same.

Rocket was on the same wavelength; after they finished their cups of blue space java, Rocket insisted on going over Bucky’s prosthetic arm. They left Quill snickering to himself in the galley; “Let’s take a look at that arm” was going to end up being widely-known code for “Do not interrupt Bucky and Rocket.” If it wasn’t already.

There actually was a little damage to Bucky’s arm -- it had taken the brunt of the laser fire. There were some scorch marks and a couple of small, melted divots.

“You don’t have to go along with every damn thing Quill says,” Rocket informed him. “Veto power. It’s a thing here.”

“Why would I veto?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the Winter Solder wasn’t a problem back there. You handled it.”

Bucky snapped to attention, alarmed that Rocket really had no idea how close it had been. “Only because you scratched me when you did.” He lifted his right hand, intending to show Rocket the raw line of red on his wrist, but it was gone as if it had never been. Between the first-aid pod and Bucky’s mods, it’d never had a hope of becoming a scar.

Rocket rocked back on his heels. “What?”

Throat tight, Bucky nodded. “Before that? I was following orders.”

Setting the tool in his paws aside, Rocket stepped forward and took Bucky’s face in his grasp. “But it didn’t take a sixty-foot drop or an impact with a satellite hull to pull you through.” Claws and rough fingertips stirred, tickled, petted. “So that’s progress. It’s frickin’ awesome progress.”

But Bucky couldn’t help feeling like it almost hadn’t been. “Are you sure you wanna do this? With me?”

“That’s a dumb question.”

“It’s not and you know it. I might never not be dangerous.”

“Damn, I hope not.”

“What?”

“You are dangerous. I like that part. A lot,” Rocket frankly informed him. “The part where you can’t control it sometimes is what sucks.”

“That’s the part I’m talking about.”

“And it’s never gonna change if we don’t do something about it. You having second thoughts about working with me on that?”

“No.” Bucky looked down. Sighed. “It’s just… my kill list is long enough already.”

“Spoiler alert: it’ll get longer if you hang out with us.”

“But your name’s not on it. Groot, Gamora, Mantis, Drax, Quill -- if I ever -- if something happened and--”

Rocket’s paw hovered over his mouth, shushing him. “We really gotta work on your self-confidence.”

“You’re in for a long haul.”

“So we’ll boost your optimism in the meantime. Repeat after me: the glass is half full.”

Bucky laughed, remembering how Rocket had gotten on Groot’s case about that very thing back on Kraglin’s ship. It might have been the second comment Bucky had ever heard him make. This day was turning out to be chocked full of nostalgia. The good kind.

Winding down, he smiled into Rocket’s eyes and brushed his fingertips through Rocket’s jaw scruff.

“What?” Rocket murmured, eyelids drooping. “I got some Skrull misery tangled up in there?”

“And that would look like what, exactly?”

Rocket’s smug grin vanished. “There’s something you should probably know,” he blurted.

Bucky’s hand lowered. He waited.

Rocket’s small chest expanded with a deep breath. “I wasn’t kidding about you being stuck with me.”

“...yeah?”

Rocket swallowed visibly. “I liked you from the start. But when I stayed that night -- after you beat the Winter Soldier the first time? -- that, uh, that morning kinda tipped the scales.”

That morning. The morning Bucky had practically dared Rocket to lie down on Bucky’s bunk for some shuteye with him. “How’s that?”

Rocket exhaled a warbling whimper. His ears tilted to either side in apology. His tail dragged dejectedly on the floor. “Ever since then, um, there’s something--” He pressed one small but capable fist to his own chest. “--something in me that says you’re mine. My mate, I guess. But I can’t be sure because it’s not like I’ve got an actual species I can consult with, y’know? So…” He shook his head. “I don’t really know what that means.”

Bucky pulled Rocket’s other paw from his jaw. “I didn’t realize.”

“Yeah, me either.” Rocket forced a laugh. It was awkward as hell, jangling Bucky’s nerves. The contents of his stomach swirled as several of the comments he’d overheard the day before started to make sense.

He stood up but hesitated to go to the door. But where else could he go? Rocket’s cramped workshop didn’t offer a whole lot of options.

“This presents a problem?” Rocket asked, subdued.

“Yeah, I’d say so.”

“You don’t want this.”

“What? No, _you_ don’t want this. Not really. Not if you haven’t got a choice.”

Rocket startled. Blinked. “Wait, WHAT?”

Bucky frowned. “Isn’t that what you’re getting at?”

“No! No, no, damn it, I’ve got a choice, OK?” Rocket spread his arms wide and declared, “I am standing here talking about this crap. You can take that as a hint. I may not be all that thrilled about being frickin’ blindsided by it, but I’ve got a choice.” He stared up at Bucky in challenge. “And I’ve made it.”

Bucky’s jaw went slack.

Rocket held his ground. “You think you can handle that?” 

Bucky sank back down onto the stool. From between Bucky’s spread knees, Rocket grinned wider and wider until he was beaming a terrifyingly brilliant smile. Bucky’s scalp prickled and his fingertips tingled because whatever Rocket was about to instigate, he was obviously _really_ looking forward to it.

Rocket sauntered a step closer, giving Bucky’s thigh a firm squeeze in passing, and then slid both paws up Bucky’s chest and into his hair. Kneaded the strands and, with firm pressure, tilted Bucky’s head, angling their mouths to complement.

Bucky’s brain blanked. Rocket wasn’t going to try and kiss him, was he? No, wait, he was and -- Bucky’s brows arched -- he did. It wasn’t a human kiss, more of a nuzzling of lips and whiskers, but God it made Bucky want to settle in and never leave. Despite the shower he had taken, Rocket’s natural scent was still a little dusty from the moon they’d just left, a little spicy from the aftereffects of adrenaline, and a lot _him._ And when Rocket exhaled through his nose, his breath was odorless and hot. Humid, like any human’s would be.

A soft moan -- Bucky’s. He didn’t care. This felt (and was just) so incredible. Warm and soothing. Wanting and having. It had been so long since Bucky had felt anything this good. Maybe he never had.

“I’m glad you kept the beard,” Rocket mumbled against Bucky’s lips, and Bucky smiled too widely, dissolving the kiss too soon.

“Me, too,” he said, massaging the base of Rocket’s ears, watching him close his eyes and lean into it.

“This was a mistake,” Rocket groaned. Before Bucky could release him, two paws clamped onto his wrists and he grumbled, “Should’ve started this in your room.”

Bucky leaned in just far enough to press his forehead to Rocket’s. “My room’s right next door,” he drawled. “Wanna see the porthole?”

“Wanna steam it up, more like.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

* * *

Not a damn thing, according to Rocket, who grabbed Bucky’s hand and hauled him into the corridor. Bucky resisted long enough to pluck Rocket’s pillow from his bunk and then both of them were crashing into Bucky’s room and to hell with who overheard the ruckus.

Rocket spun Bucky around and shoved him down onto the bed, clamored up after him and, Jesus, Bucky never would have thought that nuzzling at someone’s mouth could be so intolerably erotic. Every nerve ending in his body flared to life, fired up, and zoomed into overdrive. Fur so fucking soft between his fingers, a rapid-beating pulse beneath his thumb, a tail swishing over his thighs.

Those devilish claws painted streaks of sensation down his chest and Bucky gasped, barely hanging on to coherence because holy shit this was better, hotter, more glorious than _anything._

“Any objections?” Rocket checked, and Bucky had to stop and lift his head, force himself to look down at the fabric wadded up in Rocket’s paws. His overshirt.

Bucky reached for the collar, hunching his shoulders and rolling up to ease the removal of his tunic. The undershirt came with it, tangled up, and Bucky closed his eyes at the feel of cool air on his heated skin.

Rocket paused, studied him for so long that Bucky caught his breath and dared to open his eyes. And when he did--

_Sweet Jesus._

Rocket was staring hard at the light trail of hair that started just above Bucky’s navel and disappeared beneath his belt buckle and trousers. A paw approached and Bucky snatched it up in his grasp.

“Ticklish,” he said because that was what he remembered from before although who the hell knew if Hydra had taken that, too.

Rocket licked his chops. “OK, so, how do I…?”

Bucky pressed the paw to his skin and, _oh hell yes._ That rough touch smoothed firmly down his torso, sending a shockwave ahead of its progress and _\--oh shit._

“Sorry,” Bucky whispered, flushing with arousal and embarrassment and hesitation when he once would have crowed with male pride, but he had no idea if Rocket was actually interested in, er, quite that much of him or not.

He was.

That horribly hot paw kept moving. It slid down, over the front of his trousers, finding and following the line of Bucky’s hardening length. Bucky breathed out a groan through his nose, trying to stay quiet because they were on the _Milano_ and this tin can Goddamn echoed.

Down and up Rocket rubbed and Bucky was not going to be reaching the light at the end of this tunnel with clean pants, that was for damn sure. His spine arched, head thrown back and prosthetic hand clutching Rocket’s pillow, hips hitching in hopeful, needy rhythm.

“This,” Rocket breathed, “cannot possibly feel _that_ good.”

“Is,” Bucky rasped, his brain a couple of words behind his tongue. “Oh, God, it is.” Pulling his right hand away from that lithe, muscular back, Bucky fumbled for Rocket’s wrist, and pleaded: “Wait. Wait wait wait.”

Rocket hissed. “I really don’t want to. For the record.” But he did. He stopped and Bucky focused on catching his breath _again._ On finding his brain. And when he did--

“Shit. I don’t have any towels, lotion, nothing.”

“We need that stuff?”

“It’s good to have,” Bucky answered before he could think beyond the question itself to the fact that-- “You’ve never done this before?”

Rocket shook his head and Bucky felt a surge of emotion so intense that it immolated him. He pushed toward Rocket and nudged him back onto the bed, buried his face in that furred neck and inhaled as he traced a sensitive ear, a twisting spine, and then palmed the inside of a wiry thigh. Rocket whined, fists in Bucky’s hair, and Bucky, riding the wave of _want-need-mine,_ had to check, “You feel this?”

“Ungh!”

He inched his hand up until his thumb was tracing the crease of Rocket’s thigh and pelvis. “You getting hard?”

“I--I--” Rocket gave up and whined.

Bucky nuzzled his panting mouth. “You want me to check?”

A decisive, almost violent nod, and then Bucky was palming him gently but with increasing pressure as Rocket moved mindlessly against him. A line of flesh was emerging, hardening from the juncture between Rocket’s legs. Bucky dared to delve deeper, curling his fingers a bit, and he felt the firm, tight flesh of testicles. _Thank God._ Finding a similar (if somewhat compact) version of his own equipment left Bucky lightheaded with relief.

He pulled back and Rocket snarled. “No! This is--don’t you dare!”

“Shh. If we keep going, it’s gonna get messy.”

“Messy?”

“Kaboom,” Bucky warned him.

“I like when things go boom.”

“You might end up owing me a T-shirt.” Bucky reached over and yanked the garment out of the tangled up tunic.

“I’m good for it. Just… _c’mon.”_

Bucky sniffed and nuzzled his way across Rocket’s shoulders, unfastening his overalls and peeling the bib down his chest, working the trousers down his hips. If his tail, partially trapped in the fabric, bothered him at all, then Rocket was way too far gone to notice.

“Nothing you don’t want,” Bucky breathed against Rocket’s ear and, patience snapping, Rocket grabbed his hand and--

A sleek, furred chest. A taut, furred belly. Bucky’s fingers smoothed over a hip bone and then (gently) down. Rocket’s jaw snapped shut on nothing but air as soft fur turned into delicate, hot skin that Bucky lightly traced with his fingertips.

He measured a heavy length, firm and shapely, that (given Rocket’s small stature) was frankly impressive. Bucky hummed his approval with each rhythmic stroke, matching Rocket’s hissing breaths with his own shallow panting.

Sure, there were differences but the pleasure was the same, and Rocket’s hand stayed on his, claws biting into Bucky’s skin, silently demanding more, more, _more_ until his hips stopped rocking to and fro and started rubbing tight circles against Bucky’s palm. And that was when the sweaty flesh in his possession started swelling again, not _along_ but _around._

“Talk to me, tiger,” Bucky whispered anxiously, out of his depth and entering uncharted territory now because human dicks didn’t do this -- didn’t swell up to the size and shape of a ripe plum near the base of the shaft. “This feel good?”

Rocket mewled, opened his eyes, gasped. And came.

Only, it wasn’t like any climax that Bucky had ever known. Rocket didn’t come in pulsing jets, but in a single long, slow, uninterrupted release. Bucky grabbed for his used undershirt and tried to catch most of it in an effort to keep it from turning sticky and clumping in Rocket’s fur. A minute turned into two, three, five, _ten_ as Bucky coaxed and massaged Rocket through it. Finally, it slowed to a steady dribble of opalescent pearls and the firm flesh under Bucky’s palm began to soften.

Bucky’s slippery hand stilled.

Rocket blinked his eyes open. Focused. Cursed in at least two languages. “Kaboom,” he assessed, stunned.

“You gonna live?” Bucky made a valiant effort not to smirk.

Rocket tried to roll his eyes, but ended up looking more delirious than not. “I don’t think I knew what that word meant until now.” He grunted in satisfaction, utterly boneless on Bucky’s bed.

Bucky was certain he’d never seen anything so mesmerizing as Rocket’s blissful and jaw-droppingly long release. Hell, he’d just about experienced it vicariously… except for the fact that he was as hard as steel and still stuck in his underpants and trousers, his socks and boots…

He sat up with a wince as things tried to shift against cloth, but couldn’t. With his left hand, he reached for his fly, but paused when Rocket batted his fingers away.

Bucky licked his lips, his skin feeling tight and getting tighter as Rocket lazily undid the buckle and button and zip. Paws on his waist carved trails of sizzling friction as Rocket pushed the fabric down over Bucky’s hips.

Bucky fumbled with the fastenings on his boots and gracelessly tumbled them away, uncaring where they ended up. He only had eyes for Rocket (and the wicked twinkle in those brown eyes) as the descending cloth revealed the trail of soft hair below his belly button, inch by inch, until--

Freedom.

A groan climbed Bucky’s throat as the chokingly tight trousers slouched around his thighs. He braced himself over Rocket with his left hand, a breath shuddering past his lips.

“Holy shit. How does that even fit in your pants?” Rocket sputtered on an incredulous whisper.

Bucky had to laugh. Quietly. “Not comfortably.”

With a snicker, Rocket reached for him. Bucky intercepted. “No claws.”

“I’ll be very gentle.”

And he was. So sweet and thorough as he caressed the hard, flushed length. Along and around and over. _Ah, God…_ Bucky bit his lip as a nimble thumb swiped the beading moisture away.

“Smells like you,” Rocket observed on a eloquent shiver, “but _more.”_

And that was Bucky’s limit. It had been too long since he’d wanted this and now he wanted it too much. The throbbing ache of arousal flashed pins-and-needles painful and he scrambled for something to use. Bucky grabbed his abandoned T-shirt.

“Can I borrow some of this?”

“It’s yours,” Rocket said, and then his eyes widened as Bucky scooped up a smear of still-warm, slick release from the fabric and reached for himself. “What’re you doing?”

Bucky forced himself to pause. “I’m putting you on me. That a deal-breaker?”

Wide-eyed and mute, Rocket shook his head and gawped as Bucky closed his fist around his own arousal, moaning through his nose, his eyelids fluttering at the gorgeous feel of it. One thrust became two and then three and then Rocket was cursing, pulling at Bucky’s arms until he was arched over Rocket on the bed, braced up on his left elbow, hips rolling as claws tangled in his hair and tugged. Another paw found his chest and Rocket went straight for the kill, rubbing the nearest nipple.

Bucky lipped at Rocket’s ear, hot breath rustling his fur, and Rocket groaned. Inhaled deep and groaned again. He mindlessly scratched at Bucky’s chest and it set off sparks-flares-explosions deep in Bucky’s core.

He gasped, coming-coming-coming in hard, body-quaking, breath-taking jolts of blinding sensation. His mind blanked, spun, zoomed far and wide through the cosmos to the drumbeat of his pounding heart. His body flowed and followed, tingling with airy pleasure.

Soaring.

Exhilarating.

And so satisfying.

His first thought as he managed to inhale against Rocket’s scalp was that it had never felt like that before. An almost drunken, out-of-his-mind astronomical blast.

Supernova.

“That,” Rocket mused, tracing Bucky’s sweat-misted shoulders, “was frickin’ hot.”

Bucky giggled, his brain still feeling hopelessly scattered.

“But you kinda missed the target there, cutie.”

Resigning himself to the unavoidable chore of cleanup, Bucky shakily leaned back. He gave Rocket an affectionate, left-handed pinch to his fuzzy chin and then took a survey. Looking down, he frowned; all but a small splatter had been caught by the undershirt. “What was I supposed to hit?”

Rocket rubbed his hand along Bucky’s thigh in universal invitation. “Well, you put me on you. Kinda greedy of you not to share.”

Bucky’s pulse jumped. A smile pushed at his lips. “Wasn’t sure you’d appreciate the mess.” Brows scrunching with mock severity, he pointed out, “You hate messes.”

“That ain’t a mess. That’s you and me.”

Bucky bit his lip to keep from laughing. “We _are_ a mess.” In more than one sense of the word.

Rocket gave him a serene smile, tapping his claws against Bucky’s forearm and thigh. “This is one of them double-negative things. Two negatives make a positive.”

“I’ve heard about those,” Bucky hummed, and God it was hilarious that he could think of his primary school arithmetic textbook and grammar primer at a time like this, gazing down at a cybernetically engineered raccoon-man -- Bucky’s new lover -- in a simple bunk of wilted, musky sheets. “We’ve just got one problem.”

“What’s that, bright eyes?”

“No ventilation.”

Rocket scoffed. “That ain’t our problem, trust me.” He inhaled slowly, like he was savoring a divine aroma, his eyelids sliding half-mast with satisfaction and eyes glittering with rekindled interest.

Bucky snorted. “It will be our problem once everyone else gets a whiff.”

“Eh,” Rocket dismissed, tugging Bucky closer in a clear demand for him to lie down. “If they complain, we’ll just shoot ‘em.”

Bucky settled in and curled himself toward Rocket, who was clearly a cuddler. “I love how you’ve got an answer for everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “tipping the scales” -- I really like the idea of intimacy being a factor here. In the first GotG movie, we see Rocket sleeping in a prisoner pile in the Kyln, but in this fic, his attraction to Bucky combines with the act of denning with him to cement their bond. (Actual male raccoons do not usually den with a mate according to my sources.)
> 
> Rocket’s sexuality and mating preferences are not based on real raccoons. I guess female raccoons are monogamous but males are polygamous. There is no one-to-one mating-for-life type behavior, but I’m a romantic like that. Also, if you detect some vague Omega verse elements here, yes, I did draw from the standard Alpha physiology for Rocket because, frankly, if I Google “raccoon penis” I will certainly see things that cannot be unseen, so let me have my fanciful nonsense here: whatever genetic enhancements Rocket received from the laboratory procedures (inadvertently?) gave him a pretty gosh darn great alpha package.
> 
> If you think these shenanigans are kind of a cop-out (because there’s no penetrative sex involved), I would like to point out that Rocket and Bucky are kind of both first-timers here. Yes, I believe Bucky has had experience (with women), but it was so long ago and his confidence is so shot-all-to-hell that just the simple act of Rocket allowing Bucky to take the reins in bed (and the fact that Bucky handles it pretty damn well) is a hugely satisfying and affirming experience for Bucky. One that I think he really needed (in this fic).
> 
> I actually tend to write penetrative sex in fics (for other fandoms) and I’d like to get out of that habit because I realize that penetrative sex isn’t the be-all and end-all of sexual intimacy for everyone. What is more important is that I listen to the characters themselves and try to give them the intimacy that they are comfortable with.
> 
> On a personal note: until about two months ago, I had never EVER considered writing a pairing like this. But I literally could not ignore the challenge it presented, so here we are. (And NO, I don’t mind if you elected to skip the sexytimes altogether. I wrote this for the sake of answering Quill’s question back in Chapter 8: Bucky’s body is human and Rocket’s body is based on a raccoon’s, so how would sex even work for them? I realize I’m biased, but I now believe it has the potential to work Very Well.)  
> (^_~)


	18. Chapter 18

“We’re never going to hear the end of this,” Bucky warned, stepping back into his room and letting the door fall shut again.

He’d volunteered to duck out and collect supplies from the bathroom for cleaning themselves up… and upon opening the door he’d nearly tripped over what was obviously a gift basket just sitting in the hall. Hypoallergenic soap, clean hand towels, a canteen of hot water, unscented hand lotion, facial tissues, fresh sheets, and an air scrubber. The perfect gift for every couple’s spontaneous first time.

Rocket leaned up on his elbow, fur ridiculously flattened on the cheek that had been using Bucky’s chest for a pillow up until just moments ago. “Hmm? That was fast.”

“You can say that again.” Bucky held up the gift basket.

“Those smug assholes.”

Smiling wryly, Bucky placed the air filter on the room’s only stool (where he usually piled his clothing for the coming day) and flicked it on. Then he dug out the water and sloshed a little onto a towel. Rubbed in a bit of soap and passed it to Rocket, who sighed.

“What?” Bucky asked, undoing his trousers so that he could wipe himself down with a second warm-and-soapy towel.

“It’s just,” Rocket began with genuine regret, abandoning both his train of thought and the towel in exchange for gathering the sheets up in his paws and inhaling. Like an addict.

Bucky marveled. Whatever Rocket was smelling, it had to be damn good. Bucky was hard pressed to think of even one aroma he’d be all torn up over airing out through an open a window. “That good, huh?”

“Bright eyes, we are frickin’ incredible together. It’s an actual crime to waste this, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Leaning down, Bucky touched his lips to Rocket’s mouth and mumbled, “We’ll make more.”

Rocket hooked a paw around the back of Bucky’s neck and growled possessively.

“Caveman,” Bucky teased into their nuzzling kiss.

“That is true.”

Bucky tried to soften his next words by muttering into Rocket’s scruff: “Don’t know how often it’s going to happen here, though.”

“Every chance we get if I have anything to say about it.”

Leaning back, Bucky asked, “And what about everybody else? I hear veto power is a thing on the _Milano.”_

“No, no,” Rocket endearingly argued. “That rule is specifically for Quill: no bringing dates on board. For security.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They could be spies!”

“Or mentally-unstable, brainwashed assassins?”

Rocket framed Bucky’s face in his paws. “Hey. Don’t go there. Again.”

And because Bucky really didn’t want to start an unresolvable argument in the middle of a pretty fantastic “morning after,” he agreed -- “I’m not going anywhere” -- and crawled back into bed.

* * *

“Hey, look, it’s the lovebirds!”

Drax opened his mouth to object.

Quill cut him off: “Just go with it for once, will you?”

Mantis asked, “Did you find our basket?”

“Our?” Rocket glanced around the room, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Gamora smiled. “We decided against adding a bow. Bad call?”

Rocket smacked his palm against his face on an exasperated whine. Bucky lowered himself into the nearest stool and gave Rocket’s shoulder a bump with his fist. “What color?” he asked Gamora, who sputtered a laugh.

“I have a pink one,” Mantis offered.

“And you should keep it,” Quill told her. “The last thing I ever wanna see is Rocket in a pretty, pink bow.”

“And this--” Rocket held up a fist. “--is the last thing you’re ever gonna see if you don’t mind you own frickin’ business!”

“Dude! What the--I thought getting laid would mellow you out.”

Rocket glared, ears flattening. “See, you say that while knowing how much I enjoy shooting people. That makes you the idiot of the day.”

Wide-eyed with disbelief, Quill asked Bucky, “How the hell do you put up with this mean-spirited sack of--”

“Voluntarily,” Bucky loudly retorted, talking over the oncoming insult.

“Unbelievable,” Quill muttered.

A clatter on the cockpit ladder preceded Groot’s entry to the galley. “I am Groot,” he told Quill who, with a huff, stood up.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take a look. Excuse me, Mantis,” he muttered absently, his hand brushing her elbow as he squeezed past her and toward the ladder.

It was a casual touch like hundreds of others that unavoidably happened between seven people on a ship this size, but Mantis jolted like she’d touched a live wire.

She rounded on Quill, who had one foot on the lowest rung of the ladder, and shouted, “YOU THINK ROCKET AND BUCKY ARE ADORABLE!”

Quill startled. “What? No, I--I DO NOT.”

“You do!” she squealed, tears of mirth spilling onto her cheeks.

Drax threw back his head and bellowed a roar of laughter up at the ceiling. “HAH-HAH! QUILL, YOU-- HAH-HAH! -- HAVE NO HUMILIATING SECRETS FROM MANTIS!”

Peter Quill’s mouth dropped open and his face turned bright red.

Gamora struggled to bite back a smile, but gave up the effort quickly. “They _are_ adorable, Quill.”

“I -- NEVER -- said that.” He pointed to each of the room’s occupants in turn.

Mantis beamed. “You did not have to!”

Bucky stood and rounded the table. “You felt that?”

She nodded heartily, more tears tipping over her lashes. And when Bucky held out his hand, she took it, clasped it hard and closed her eyes. The tips of her antennae glowed as he “told” her how happy he was that she was all better. His little sister ladybug.

Meanwhile, Quill was stuttering like a moron, trying to salvage the remains of his shredded pride.

Rocket was having none of it and, crossing his arms over his chest, told Quill, “Keep your hands to yourself. Or else.”

“You--wait. You think I’d…?” He was too distraught to finish the thought aloud.

Bucky wasn’t. He caught Rocket’s eye and said, “If Quill tries anything, I’ll break his arm.”

Rocket perked up.

Quill shouted, “HE’S A RACCOON FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

“I was talking about me,” Bucky clarified coolly.

“…what. No. That’s--no. I have navigation readings to look at. Up there.” He pointed to the cockpit. “And you A-holes are not invited.”

Quill thundered up the ladder, leaving behind a chorus of guffaws, chuckles, giggles, sighs, hums, and snickers.

Bucky turned to Mantis and asked, “Would you mind helping me again? I still need a lot of practice at controlling the soldier.”

“Of course, my brother Bucky. I will always help you.” She gave him a quick hug and swift, twin pats to his shoulders.

The navigation data that Groot had alerted Quill to turned out to be a slight gravitational anomaly. It required only a minor alteration in course and, as Rocket leaned against Bucky’s side at the galley table, tapping his way through the various scans and charts on the tablet’s display, he concluded, “Looks like Ohlpho lost a moon -- HEAR THAT QUILL? SOMEONE’S BEEN BLOWING UP MOONS!”

From the cockpit, Quill shouted back, “GUESS YOU’RE NOT GONNA BE THE FIRST AFTER ALL. BOO-HOO.”

Gamora arched a brow, pausing to take a look at Rocket’s analysis on her way to the cockpit. “This could have been a test run for a new weapon.”

Rocket nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“I WAS THINKING IT, TOO!” Quill insisted.

Bucky wiped a hand over his face, unsure if he was scrubbing away a grin or a grimace. He was just glad that it was Gamora and not him heading into the cockpit because Bucky did not have the patience to deal with a sulking Quill. Now or ever.

Drax thumped the table and roared out his two cents: “THE MOON HAS SIMPLY WANDERED. THEY DO THAT.”

Rocket looked at him and blinked once, nonplussed. “That’s planets.”

“What?”

“The things that wander in the night sky. They’re planets, not moons.”

“Planets are too large to wander,” Drax insisted.

“Look,” Rocket began, propping one elbow on the table and really getting into it, “from the point of view of people on a given planet, unless other massive objects like big-ass meteors interfere, a single moon orbits in a regular, curvilinear path. Other planets in the same solar system look like they’re doing loop-de-loops--” He gestured with a forefinger. “--so people dubbed them ‘wandering stars.’”

Drax replied with care, “We are talking about a missing moon, not a star.”

“I _know_ that!” Rocket snapped.

“The moon is gone. Therefore, it has wandered.”

“Unlikely.”

Drax huffed. “Why must you always insist on explosions?”

Bucky bit back a grin at Drax’s disgruntled tone.

Rocket pointed at the tablet screen. “Because we have little bits of moon dust where there should be an actual moon.”

“I still say it is easier to move a moon than blow it up. It is the same with people.” And there, Drax rested his case.

Rocket snarled, “Oh, no it ain’t!” just as Bucky reminded Drax, “We can’t be sure that whoever is responsible is using the same logic.”

Drax blinked. “An excellent point. We will investigate both possibilities then.”

He stood and tromped up into the cockpit to deliver this proposal to Quill and Gamora.

Rocket swiveled his snout around and pinned Bucky with his stare. “That was smooth.”

Bucky affected an indifferent shrug. “Instead of being totally wrong, he’s only half wrong now.”

“And when we end up facing off with some lunatic with a moon-destroying cannon, he’s going to insist he knew the moon got blown up the whole time. You’ve been forewarned.”

Indeed he had.

“And you should kiss me now,” Rocket directed.

“I won’t be able to do that later?”

“Much, much later. If we’re going after some butthead who has the firepower to blow up moons, then I gotta get to work.”

“Say no more,” Bucky whispered, already leaning in to nuzzle and lip at Rocket’s mouth. When Rocket’s paw brushed against his neck and his claws caught in Bucky’s hair and Bucky’s skin flushed with heat, he forced himself to pull back. And then he waited for Rocket’s lashes to flutter and eyelids to lift. And there: that look in those brown eyes -- soft contentment, quiet joy -- pulled a slow, dopey smile from Bucky.

“I am Groot.”

They looked over just as Groot presented the tablet that he’d picked up from the table, showing Rocket and Bucky the short series of photos he’d just taken. Of the two of them.

“Quit perving on us, man!” Rocket complained, pushing himself away from the table.

Groot took exception. “I am Groot!”

Rocket pressed his face against his clenched fists.

“What?” Bucky asked. “I didn’t catch that one.”

Rocket translated flatly, “He says we’re adorable.”

Bucky grinned at Groot. Then he pointed to the tablet. “I want copies of these.”

Groot beamed.

* * *

“Keeping busy, I see,” Steve observed as Bucky settled into the seat opposite the communications screen. He gestured to his own neck while smirking at Bucky’s. “Nice love bite.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it is.” Rocket had not been thrilled (at all) to hear that “Captain frickin’ America” had called to speak to Bucky.

> “C’mon, don’t break that. It looks almost finished,” Bucky had chastised Rocket, lightly massaging his tense shoulders.
> 
> Despite the warning, Rocket’s paws had tightened dangerously around the device he was building. “Why you even answering his call? How many second chances you gonna give the moron?”
> 
> Bucky had sighed. He’d told Rocket a lot of what he could remember about his childhood, about growing up with (and keeping an eye on) little Steve Rogers. Even their misadventures, like that time at Rockaway Beach:
> 
> _“What was so frickin’ special about a beach?”_
> 
> _“Um, it was a good place to meet girls.”_
> 
> _“…girls, huh?”_
> 
> _“Well, before I met you, I didn’t know any better.”_
> 
> Bucky had thought that sharing a few fun, harmless anecdotes would help Rocket see that Steve wasn’t all bad, that Bucky saw Steve as a brother, that Steve would rather die than knowingly betray Bucky. He’d thought he’d be hearing the death knells of Rocket’s jealousy.
> 
> He’d thought wrong.
> 
> Because what was really bothering Rocket was the fact that Bucky and Steve were two of a kind: two childhood friends from the same neighborhood who had been made into super soldiers -- war machines -- and plucked not just from their home but from time itself. Bucky and Steve, each still had someone who had been there in the beginning, someone who also felt that vast and lonely distance from all that had once been familiar.
> 
> Rocket didn’t have anyone like that. Not even Groot.
> 
> So, Bucky had simply said, “I love you.”
> 
> Rocket had let out a gust of breath, turned to look Bucky in the eye, and said, “And I love you.”
> 
> Bucky had given him a smile and his ear a nuzzle. “So don’t blow up any moons while I deal with this.”
> 
> Rocket had retaliated by giving him a thorough (and biting) kiss on the neck, ensuring that Captain America was left on hold for five solid minutes. Bucky, dazed and breathless, had let Rocket (smirking his fuzzy tail off) shove him toward the door. “Yeah, something’s gonna be goin’ boom, alright -- but only if you hurry it up, bright eyes!”

Steve’s brows quirked and the shit-eating grin on his face jolted Bucky back into the moment.

Steve drawled, “If you don’t believe me--”

“No, I do.” There was a mark. Of course there was.

Steve gave him a funny look, kind of amused and incredulous all at once. “So, Rocket, huh? I can’t say I see the appeal what with the fur and the tail--”

“And the brain,” Bucky was quick to defend, “and the heart.” Both of which were aspects of Agent Peggy Carter that Steve would rather choke to death on battery acid than let any man insult. Which meant that Bucky didn’t have to mention Rocket’s fierce and feisty sense of loyalty, and he didn’t have to bring up their shared life experiences, either. Steve couldn’t understand the horror of the laboratories that Bucky and Rocket had been held prisoner within. Not even Steve’s numerous stays in the hospital as a kid came close to being a shadow of that hell.

Steve backed off. Cleared his throat. “It’s just… he’s a far cry from a ‘Dolores.’”

Bucky thanked his lucky stars for that, but he said, “I’m a far cry from the boy who blew three bucks trying to win a stuffed bear for a pretty girl.”

Not even Steve “Smart Ass” Rogers could argue with that. “Well. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make him hate me a little less.”

“I’m a recovering brainwashee, not a miracle worker.”

“You can do anything you set your mind to.”

Bucky snorted. “You’re underestimating Rocket’s love for holding grudges.”

“I hear he’s got a love for blowing things up, too.” Steve looked concerned, but didn’t tell Bucky to watch his back or guard his heart. Instead, he took a breath and got down to business: “So what’s this I hear about a moon being destroyed?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so Rocket is still a little on edge (even after the awesome sexytimes) mostly because it’s all so new and he doesn’t know how to deal (with both this new normal and the caveman tendencies). He just needs a little time to get used to these changes in his life. Not that he and Quill are ever going to not razz on each other because that’s just how they communicate.
> 
> Rockaway Beach, Dolores, and Bucky wasting 3 dollars trying to win a stuffed bear -- all from Captain America: Civil War.
> 
> Up next: the obligatory end credits blurb of dubious significance. (^_^)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter Quill, Star-Lord POV

Star-Lord looked up as Drax plodded into the galley with his arms full of laundered and folded sheets.

“Whatcha got there, Drax?” he was bored enough to ask. And, hell, he was just plain glad for an excuse to ignore (as totally as possible) the teamwork building exercise at the galley counter where Bucky was throwing a meal together for everyone and Rocket was supervising while standing on a stool. Leaning in. Looking over his shoulder. Grabby hands included. Eugh.

Drax informed him, “I have counted five times. A set of sheets is missing.”

Star-Lord’s eyes narrowed. He swiveled around and passed the news on to the likely culprits: “Hear that, honeymooners? Some sheets have gone missing.”

Bucky didn’t take his attention off of the stew that was simmering. “Weird,” he said.

Star-Lord drawled meaningfully, “I am sure it is _very_ weird.”

“Oh, for--!” Rocket rolled his eyes. “They’re not missing if I know where they are.”

“So… let’s wash them,” Star-Lord strongly suggested.

“Let’s not and say we did.” Rocket glanced toward Bucky. “Did I say that right?”

“Nailed it.”

Star-Lord sat up, tossing aside the crossword puzzle challenge that Gamora had sent him. “What the hell d’you wanna keep old, funky sheets for anyway?”

“It was a special occasion!”

“Oh. Oh, my God.”

Groot creaked his way up the ladder and over to the table, looking intrigued.

Star-Lord put his head in his hands. “You two are nasty. Bucky, did you know about this--this sheet-stealing sicko in our midst?”

He shrugged. “So Rocket’s keeping an extra set of sheets -- big deal. Wasn’t hard to figure out when I last had laundry duty.” Bucky glanced over his shoulder at Star-Lord. “You didn’t even count them?”

“What _for?”_

Drax hummed in disappointment. “It is basic household economics.”

“And logistics management,” Bucky added.

“They are sheets!” Star-Lord argued. “They don’t sprout feet and pitter-patter off! What the hell point is there in counting them!?”

“It’s OK, Quill.” Rocket joshed, “We all know it’s because you can’t count.”

“QUILL CAN’T COUNT?” Mantis shouted from the cockpit above.

Groot leaned over and gave Quill a commiserating pat on the shoulder.

“CAN’T SPELL, EITHER,” Gamora added loudly just as the screen on Star-Lord’s tablet flashed red with an error message. Great, he’d screwed up one of the answers to the puzzle.

Sighing, he picked up the tablet and hollered back, “WHICH ONE DID I GET WRONG?”

“MOST OF THEM.”

“Son of a--” He slouched back, slapping his thigh in defeat. But then, spying Rocket’s insufferable smirk, he rallied: “Wash those sheets and put them back.”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s the word I used. Keep repeating it and you’ll wear it out.”

Star-Lord muttered a string of curses.

“I am Groot,” Groot said, arms crossed, with a stern look aimed at Star-Lord.

“Hey. For your information, this is my ship. I can use whatever language I want.”

Drax suddenly resurfaced from La La Land, focused on his companions in the galley, and said wistfully, “We hung my daughter Kamaria’s birthing sheets upon the wall of our home. The stains provided us a reminder of Ovette’s many hours of grueling labor and torment.”

Star-Lord’s forehead landed on the tabletop with a _thump!_ “None of you assholes are invited to my happily ever after.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Rocket kept the sheets (they’re safely sealed up in a plastic bag to preserve the odors) but not the jizz T-shirt. Bucky didn’t have enough clothes and couldn’t afford to spare it… unless Rocket was gonna be OK with him walking around bare-chested from time to time (and the answer to that is “NO”).
> 
> What happened with Bucky’s old arm? (The one from Kraglin’s ship, yeah?) Well, I’m not sure yet. Rocket is saving it for something REALLY EPIC.

**Author's Note:**

> Wanna be Bucket friends? (^_^)
> 
> manniness.dreamwidth.org


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